


You'll Be the Death of Me

by YinAndYangOnIce



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M, Pining, Punk!Louis, Slow Burn, and gratuitous self-serving ziall bc yes, cute high school AU, with Marcel!Harry bc I said so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-26
Updated: 2014-08-26
Packaged: 2018-02-14 21:52:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 58,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2204367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YinAndYangOnIce/pseuds/YinAndYangOnIce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This story is 50% denial and 50% bad puns </p><p>Basically Louis is a punk who is failing history and Harry is a nerd who's really good at surprising him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You'll Be the Death of Me

**Author's Note:**

> this is a repost from one of my tumblr stories and it's so long it's hard to read on my shitty theme so here ya go
> 
> and I'm very sorry that the texting part is kinda hard to decipher, it was supposed to be bolded/italicized to tell who was who, but i just couldn't HTML edit 58k words i'm sorry

Louis hated history. Besides the fact that he was more of a “look towards the future, because you can’t change the past” kind of guy, but he abhorred how dreadfully boring and tedious it all was. Treaty of so-and-so, This-or-That Charter, Battle of Who-Actually-Gives-A-Fuck, he didn’t really see the point in learning about things that he could guarantee beyond a shadow of a doubt that he wouldn’t even remember next semester, let alone the next year or the rest of his life. The only thing that genuinely entertained him about history was that fact that an entirely new church was created just because King Henry the Horny couldn’t keep it in his pants.

And now, with absolutely zero knowledge of anything he was supposed to have absorbed this year in his head, he was expected to do a whole project about an entire… population or something? Honestly, he couldn’t really be arsed to remember what his project was on, all that really mattered was that it was long and grueling and exactly one-half of his final grade.

He walked into his history classroom, chest filling with dread more than usual when he was in there, especially since “Final Project Assignment” was written on the chalkboard in thin, milky letters. He groaned, letting his head fall back until his eyes were trained on the ceiling. He let his head loll around until he was facing forwards again and trudged to his seat, dropping his bag unceremoniously on the floor and sitting down, propping his legs up on the desk.

He glanced around the room until he found Zayn wedged in the back corner with that blonde kid he was rather fond of. They were standing close together, whispering with huge smiles on their faces. Louis was surprised, maybe his best friend was finally going to make some headway with that crush he’s been nursing since the beginning of junior year.

The bell rang and Louis groaned again, boring holes into the ceiling until he heard Zayn slide into the chair next to him, the metal legs grating softly on the floor.

 

Louis turned to him, raising an eyebrow in question, sleek black piercing glittering as he did so. Zayn had a dopey grin on his face but when he noticed Louis’s eyes on him, he shrugged, coloring cheeks betraying his indifference.

“You two look awfully chummy,” Louis commented. “Was there any shocking developments that you failed to inform me of?”

Zayn frowned slightly and anyone other than Louis wouldn’t be able to tell that he was pouting. “No,” he grumbled. “At least we’re talking now. Which is more than I can say for most of last year.”

“All of last year,” Louis reminded him. “Telling him to ‘Have a good summer’ on the last day of school doesn’t count.” Zayn glared at him.

“It does so! He signed my yearbook and wrote his number down so that definitely counts,” he said.

“No, it doesn’t.”

“Anyway,” Zayn snapped. “He wants to go see a movie.”

“Wait, that’s good,” Louis said and Zayn slumped a little in his seat.

“With me, you, Liam, and that Josh kid from gym class,” he said and Louis cringed.

 

“Oh. Sorry, mate,” he said, patting him on the back. “It could be worse. We’ll just have to make sure you two sit together and share popcorn. Maybe you should try the yawn-reach-around trick.”

Zayn wrinkled his nose. “When you say it like that it sounds like I’m trying to get him off.”

Louis shrugged. “That’s the ultimate goal, isn’t it?”

Before Zayn could snark back, the teacher walked into the room, heels clacking briskly and her painted lips drawn into a thin line. Her beady, gray eyes were stern and steely behind her horn-rimmed glasses. Those dark eyes darted to Louis and Zayn in their seat then back in front of her, and Louis scowled.

“Why does she always give us the death glare whenever she comes in?” he hissed, glaring at her thin, scrawny figure as she made her way to her desk.

 

“Maybe because you drew a dick on her transparencies in permanent marker,” Zayn replied, smirking.

 

“I didn’t know it was permanent when I did it! I thought it would scrub off!” Louis said and Zayn snorted.

“All right, class,” their teacher called out, silencing the remaining conversations amongst the other students. “Take out your textbooks and turn to page four-hundred and twelve.”

The room was filled with the sound of books hitting desks and pages rapidly turning, and the teacher’s eyes fell on Louis, glaring when he made no move to get his book out.

 

“Why aren’t you taking out your book, Mr. Tomlinson?” she asked.

“I don’t have it,” Louis shrugged and her eyes flashed angrily.

 

“And where is it?” she pressed.

“My best guess would be either on my desk at home or the bottom of a river, Ms. Brooks,” he replied and tried not to grin at the snickers from the other students. Her eyes bore into him for a moment and he held her gaze, challenging her, until she sighed and turned away.

“Just share with Mr. Malik,” she said, as if she just couldn’t be bothered to deal with him anymore and turning back to the board.

“And you wonder why she hates you?” Zayn asked, pushing his book between them even though neither of them had any intention to use it.

“Hey, she started it,” he said. “I wouldn’t have to be an insufferable, little twat if she didn’t hate me on sight.”

The lesson continued much as it did every day, with Louis paying zero attention and doodling skulls and rainbows and unicorns into the margins of his completely unused notebook, leaving the center open as if he actually planned to use that space someday.

“…And the event that caused Britain to decline from power on the world stage was…? Anybody?” Ms. Brooks asked, watching as seventy percent of her class averted their eyes from her, becoming increasingly enthralled by the speckled design on the linoleum floor. Louis was no exception, having heard the question but not having the slightest idea to the answer, eyes locked onto his notebook page and scribbling nonsensically, trying to look busy. There were a few hands up, but she chose to ignore them. “Mr. Tomlinson?”

He swore under his breath before glancing up, plastering a fake smile on his face. “Yes?”

“Do you have an answer for me, Mr. Tomlinson?” she asked, slight, twisted smirk playing on her lips and he resisted the urge to scowl at her.

“No, Ms. Brooks, I don’t, sorry,” he said, overly cheerily and her smirk deepened.

“Maybe you should be paying attention instead of designing new tattoos for your collection, hm?” she jibed, lip curling slightly in distaste and Louis’s eyes narrowed dangerously. Zayn poked him in the side, trying to tell him it wasn’t worth it, but he was too far gone. The tense air of the room crackled around them, no one daring to speak as her eyes flashed, just daring him to retaliate, daring him to give her a reason to punish him.

“Hey, I-”

“The Suez Crisis.”

The tension in the room dissipated as quick as it came as all eyes turned to the back of the room, where the interruption had come from. Louis’s eyes were fixed on his teacher for just a few seconds longer, shooting daggers at her, before he followed their gaze to the back.

A boy with thick-rimmed glasses, held together in the middle by yellowing tape, and hair slicked back with so much gel that it would probably feel hard under your fingers, was facing the rest of them, face reddening rapidly under their scrutiny but chin held high, absolute.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Styles?” Ms. Brooks asked, voice saccharine with faux-innocence again.

“The event that caused the Britain’s decline of power from the world stage was the Suez Crisis,” he said with finality in his sluggish drawl, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

 

There was more silence and the boy turned even redder than humanly possible, shoulders hunching as he retreated back into himself. All eyes turned back to the teacher, who saw their gaze and her own face flushed.

“Um, yes, correct,” she said, turning back to her book.

As she carried on the lesson, slowly regaining her sense of control back, Louis turned to the back of the room, towards the boy who’d quietly stripped their teacher of her authority in less than a second, but his head was down, hand moving quickly to keep up and take down the notes she was dictating.

He scoffed to himself. He was just upset that his lesson was disturbed.

The lesson continued on and in the meantime, Louis ruminated, reliving the confrontation with his teacher over and over again, becoming steadily angrier until he felt like he might explode.

By the last ten minutes of class, he was nearly shaking with rage as Ms. Brooks closed her book and turned back to the class.

 

“Now, class, I’ve mentioned our final project quite a few times since the beginning of the semester and it’s time to partner up so you can start working on it,” she said. “And before you get too excited, I’m picking the partners. And the pairs are non-negotiable.”

Louis grimaced, just another reason to be angry. He hated every single person in this class besides Zayn, they were all judgmental, self-righteous assholes who, just like his teacher, thought they knew who he was by his tattoos and piercings. All he could do now was just pray he and Zayn were paired together.

“As you know, the project is to pick a civilization that was imperialized by a major world power and answer the questions in the packet I’m going to give you on it. At the end of the packet, you and your partner will put the answers into a presentation and present it to the class.”

 

There were several groans around the room and she rolled her eyes. “Come on, people, you’re seniors now. It’s time to be mature and professional and present this project like the big boys and girls you are.”

There was more groaning and mumbling and she sighed, handing a stack of packets to the people at the front of each row.

“Now, this project is a huge part of your grade and as such, I’m not going to let you screw it up by starting it the night before it’s due. Every week, you have to have the packet done up to a certain point to receive credit for those questions. No ifs, ands, or buts. If you turn the questions in late, you will get half off the points for that week. Having the questions done on time is fifty percent of the grade for this project. In other words, these questions are just as important as the presentation itself. Capiche?”

There was a general murmur of understanding that rippled through the classroom and she nodded before continuing.

“The basic layout for your powerpoint is in the back of the packet, but we will discuss that in greater detail closer to the actual due date,” she said and the pile of papers finally made its way to Louis’s desk. He took one before passing it back, scowling at the gargantuan packet, probably an inch thick. “And before you ask, yes, these questions must be answered in complete and coherent sentences.” More whining. “And to top it all off, I will need a bibliography.” Moaning. “MLA format.” Grousing. “Annotated.” One kid may have actually started crying.

“Oh, please, people, this is your last history project of your senior year! It might be tedious but aren’t you at all excited? Just imagine how proud of yourselves you’ll be when it’s over,” she said. There was a heavy pause. And then,

“I could live with the shame, quite honestly,” Louis said, pulling more laughter from his classmates, and a few glares from the people who actually liked this class or just hated him (including the teacher.)

“Anyway,” she said, eyes still trained on Louis as she turned and reached for her clipboard. “I will put you all with your partners. Please, no whining or hee-ing or haw-ing, these are set in stone and non-negotiable.

 

“If I find that one partner is slacking and putting all of the work on the other,” she was staring straight at Louis. “You will immediately lose points for that week or weeks or the entire project, depending on how bad the situation is.”

“All right, ready?” she took her glasses from where they were resting on her chest from their chain and placed them on the end of her crooked nose, glancing down at her sheet.

“No,” Zayn replied but she ignored him.

“Josh and Aidan. Matt and Nick. Ed and Cher. Leigh-Anne and Jade. Perrie and Cara,” she dictated, tuning out the cheers of approval or whimpers of despair that accompanied her assignments. “Zayn and Niall.”

Louis felt his friend start from next to him before he whispered a soft “Yes!” and Niall turned back to him, flashing him a thousand-watt smile and a thumbs up. And oh, no.

Because as happy as Louis was for his best friend to be spending some quality, one-on-one time with Niall, now he was left all alone. With all of these people that he hated and/or didn’t know. And he would have to work or pretend to work with them every single week and he would have to collaborate with them to present a powerpoint and his entire senior year depended on someone who probably didn’t like him.

He patted Zayn on the back, sending him a soft smile because he really was glad for him and all, but he listened with a sinking heart as his teacher listed off name after name after name.

He felt a little bit of reassurance when the people he especially didn’t like were called to be with someone else, but he was rapidly running out of people to be partnered with him and he realized, just his luck, he’d probably be the last name called out.

“…Liam and Jesy and…” she traced her long finger down the page, to the bottom. “And Louis Tomlinson and Harry Styles.”

There were more chuckles and chortles around the room as Louis’s mouth fell open, eyes wide and disbelieving. Him?!

“Now, go on and meet up with your partners, introduce yourselves if you aren’t already properly acquainted, and come up with a game plan for this project,” the teacher said.

The rest of his classmates started to scatter around the room and meet up with each other, but Louis was glued to his seat, refusing to believe what had just happened.

Not only was he going to have to do this horrific project, but he was going to have to do it with that Styles kid. He knew that kid, everyone did. He was a huge nerd and unfortunately for him, he wasn’t one of those nerds that was able to fade into the background and go unnoticed and undisturbed his high school years.

Harry was a giant, over six feet tall and one of the tallest kids in their grade, and lanky, limbs gangly and awkward; when he walked it sometimes appeared he had no control over his extremities. He wore huge, thick-rimmed glasses that were only being held together by a thin piece of tape wrapped around the two pieces, God only knows how many times they’d been broken and Louis wondered why he didn’t just bring in another pair. He wore his hair slicked back and out of his face, the hairstyle made him look years older than he was but at the same time he looked ridiculously juvenile, out of place and inappropriate. He only ever wore trousers that were too short for him, the hems a good inch or two above his ankle when he sat down. He always wore polos or collared shirts, with bow-ties or sweaters with weird, goofy patterns or sweater vests, for God’s sakes, this boy was just asking for it.

And as if it wasn’t bad enough, he was book-smart but terribly naive, answered every question he could and when he did, he spoke in a slow, calculated drawl and the entire class wanted to pull their hair out by the time he finished. He spent most of his time studying, was probably one of the top-ranked students in their year. He had no friends, his nose was always in a book, and he tripped over himself constantly. And he was bullied nearly every day.

And Louis knew what being the butt of everyone else’s joke was like, he knew how it felt to be mocked and jeered at and he felt empathic for Harry to a certain degree. But it reached a point where you were just putting yourself out there to be bullied and Harry crossed that line long, long ago, freshman year, when he stumbled over one of the laces of his enormous shoes and ended up throwing his lunch all over a senior jock’s girlfriend.

And now Louis was his partner for the rest of the semester.

“L-Louis?” he heard a deep voice call him and he turned to find the Hex himself standing over his desk, eyes nervous and arms crossed over the book in his arms protectively. Louis stared blankly up at him. “W-We’re supposed to work together?” He just blinked up at him and Harry gulped, cheeks coloring. “Do you m-mind if I sit here?” He nodded to the empty chair next to him, and Louis turned to find Zayn over with Niall, laughing cheerily and he rolled his eyes. He wouldn’t be able to get Zayn to move that fast if the building was on fire, but Niall could.

He realized that Harry was still waiting for an answer and he shrugged, not looking at him.

 

“T-Thanks,” he said, moving around the table to sit down, banging his thigh on the corner as he did. He hissed in pain, rubbing the spot once he’d sat down.

Louis couldn’t believe this. He knew Harry’s type. He was actually going to make Louis do the work he was supposed to, because anything less than an A probably meant armageddon for a bookworm like Harry, Jesus, he’d probably cry. Maybe he could convince the kid that there was no way he’d get a good grade if Louis even picked up a pencil and he should just do it all himself.

“Mr. Tomlinson?” he grit his teeth as that grating voice hit his ears again and he turned around, not even bothering to give her a fake smile. She leaned over the desk, hands on each side of the corners, eyes hard. “I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that your passing of this class depends on this project.”

“If you were so sure you didn’t need to remind me, then why did you?” he snarked but she ignored him and went on.

“And as I’m sure you know, Mr. Styles here,” she waved a hand at Harry, “is my best student.” Harry flushed and hunched his shoulders, as if guilty for his own success.

“I know that now,” Louis said sarcastically.

“And as such, I thought putting him with you would give you the best chance of actually passing this course and graduating,” she said, as if she was doing him a huge favor.

“Gee, thanks,” he muttered.

“But, as I mentioned before, points will be deducted if I see that one of you is doing more work than the other. And trust me, I will be able to tell the difference between the work of my best student and one of my more…” she paused. “struggling students. So make sure you do the work, or there will be consequences. We clear?”

“Crystal,” he growled, hand fisting in the denim of his jeans to keep himself centered. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, we have to go about getting to work.”

The teacher nodded, eyes flashing and tight smirk on her face, before walking away. He watched her go angrily before turning back to Harry, who jumped under his fierce glare.

“S-So, how did you wanna-”

“Look,” Louis quipped, slapping the desk with a flat hand and causing Harry to jump again, bad mood boiling over. “I’m not going to adhere to any schedule, I’m not going to lose sleep over this project, and I am definitely not going to spend more time discussing it with you than I have to.” Later on he’d realize he was being really harsh and it was unfair to poor Harry, but he had to let him know that he wasn’t going to be bossed around by some goodie-two-shoes poindexter just because his grades were falling and he was assigned to be Harry’s “special case.”

Harry’s eyes went wide behind his glasses, which he pushed up the bridge of his nose before he spoke again, “Uh, o-okay,” he said. “Then how would you like to do this?”

Louis was almost taken aback a little bit, he hadn’t expected Harry to respond at all, let alone so nicely.

“Just divide the questions in half each week, you do your half, I do mine, and we reconvene when we have to turn it in. That’s it,” he said.

“Okay,” Harry said, looking down at the packet and examining it. “How would you like to split it up? I do one question then you do one? Or just straight in half? Or-”

“I honestly do not give a shit,” Louis snapped and Harry cringed, then nodded, blushing again.

“Uh, right,” he said. “So then, why don’t I do one through ten and you do eleven to twenty?”

“Twenty questions every week?” Louis moaned, running his hand through his hair. “Yeah, sure, whatever.”

“Okay,” he said, marking down the questions that were his. He glanced up. “A-And I know I’m not, like, your favorite person. B-But if you want, I can give you my number? In case you need my help?”

Louis felt his blood boiling beneath the surface again. “Look, just because you were asked to babysit me doesn’t mean I’m fucking stupid. Don’t treat me like I’m an idiot!”

“I-I didn’t mean it like that, I just, like… I’m s-sorry if I-” Harry’s eyes were wide and his hands were flailing, cheeks as red as Louis’s hair.

“Whatever, I know,” he huffed, crossing his arms and turning away and maybe he felt like a petulant child, but he was a petulant child that wasn’t going to be looked down upon, damn it.

 

There was a pause between them, as Louis waited for the bell to ring and prayed that Harry wasn’t going to try to speak to him again, but, of course, the odds weren’t in his favor today.

“Th-Then can I get your number?” he asked and Louis turned to him, raising an eyebrow as if to say “Really? You’re really pushing this?” “Y-You know, in case I need your help?”

Louis stared at him for a while and the other boy flushed under his gaze. It was a stupid excuse, an honestly ludicrous suggestion that Louis could ever assist Harry in anything academic, but it was a good effort and an attempt at making amends and honestly sort of a little sweet, so he gave up. But not without showing just how grumpy he was about it.

“Fine,” he huffed, reaching out and yanking Harry’s arm closer to him. He grabbed his pen from the desk and held it to the other’s arm, not missing the way he stiffened under his touch.

“What?” he asked, loosening his grip on his arm. He looked up and saw Harry’s eyes, followed their gaze to where it was resting on his arms and shoulders, along the thin, sleek lines of his ink. He rolled his eyes, ears buzzing with annoyance. “Just because mine are permanent doesn’t mean every ink I touch is.”

 

“N-no, I know that, it’s just-”

“Do you want my number or not?” he snapped and Harry nodded jerkily, so fast Louis worried the poor boy’s eyeballs would pop out, and scoffed again. “That’s what I thought. Now hold still.” He scribbled his number on his arm in his thin scrawl and capped the pen just as the bell rang.

He grabbed his bag and unceremoniously dumped all of his shit into it and began to walk away, before stopping and whipping around, leaning in so his nose was almost touching Harry’s.

“But don’t think this makes us ‘buddies’ or anything,” he growled, saying buddies as one might say “chlamydia.” “We’re just partners for a stupid project. Don’t text me for anything other than about the project.” Harry gulped and nodded again. “And don’t think that just because she’ll have her eye on me that you can get out of doing work. I’m not gonna do anymore than I have to, capiche? No slacking off.”

Harry nodded yet again and Louis sniffed haughtily, turning around again and stalking off and on another day he might feel bad for scaring the piss out of the kid, especially about something he knew there was no chance of Harry doing anyway. The kid probably loved work, he probably was disappointed to hear that Louis was required to do his part.

 

Well, whatever. All he could do know is pretend that that period had never happened and just pray to God he wouldn’t regret giving Harry his number.

~ ~ ~

“Zayn, you can’t be serious,” Louis gasped incredulously and he heard Zayn sigh on the other end.

“Louis, no matter how many times you say that, it won’t change the fact that I am serious,” he said and Louis ignored the statement, choosing instead to continue his bewilderment routine.

“Zayn, we just got the project today and you’re telling me you want to work on it? Like, do work for it?” he asked.

“Yes, Lou, that’s typically what the definition of ‘work on it’ is,” Zayn replied dryly and honestly, Louis didn’t have time to sarcasm.

“This isn’t my Zayn! Where’s the Zayn that learned nearly the entire Chemistry book the night before his exam? Where’s the Zayn who was finishing an Economics PowerPoint due that day in my car on the way to school? Where’s the Zayn I know and love?” he screeched and he would feel bad about his volume if he wasn’t so sure that he’d blown Zayn’s eardrums out years ago.

“Louis, I’m not sure if you’re aware, but learning an entire Chemistry textbook the night before an exam sucks. Ditto with last minute PowerPoint construction,” Louis scoffed. “And maybe this time around, I don’t want to be rushing. This is an important grade after all.”

Louis was silent for a second before he said, “This is a Niall thing, isn’t it?”

“He wanted to get a head start on it,” Zayn replied immediately, not even trying to deny it. “And, like, I don’t want to seem like a flake to him. And… like, I want him to do well, you know?”

“So you’re ditching your best friend because you want your crush to have a report card to hang up on the fridge?” he asked and he could practically hear Zayn rolling his eyes.

“Lou, come on, this is Niall. You know I’d let you ditch me in a heartbeat if it was for someone like Niall,” Zayn said and Louis adamantly denied that that would be true.

 

“Yes, but what about Louis? Louis,” he said, patting his own chest for emphasis.

“That’s different, man,” he said. “I don’t wanna date you.”

“Well, I never,” Louis shrieked.

“Oh, shut up, you tosser. You know I’d date you if you put up any sort of a fight,” Zayn said, smirk audible and Louis gasped.

“What, first you ditch me and now you’re saying I’m easy?!” he cried. “Well, good luck getting anything out of me tonight! You’ll be sleeping on the couch!”

“Whatever, Lou,” he said and Louis was about to snark back when he heard a garbled voice on the other end, followed by hollow shuffling as Zayn most likely covered the receiver with his hand, but not before he heard a distinctly Irish voice calling Zayn’s name in the background.

“Coming, Ni, just telling my mum where I am!” he heard Zayn call back and Louis gasped, pulling his phone away to stare at it like it had just offended his mother in the most hideous of ways.

“Zayn, are… are you already with him?!” he hollered.

“Um…” Zayn paused, obviously mulling over his options. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, I’m already over his place. He, like, wanted to go right after school.”

“So that’s why I didn’t see you in the parking lot!” Louis said. “But how did-” he gasped again, this time holding his hand up to his head as if he felt faint and he wished Zayn could see his theatrics through the phone so he could see just how upset he was. “Zayn. Did you take Colette?”

“Of course we took Colette, Lou, I wasn’t gonna make the kid walk to his own house!” Zayn snapped.

 

“We promised that she was too special to show anyone until the second date!”

 

“She’s my motorcycle, Louis, I’ll do what I want with her!”

“But you promised!”

“Well, this is an exception, Lou! It’s Niall!”

Louis heard the voice from before again, probably asking Zayn if he’d called him and he heard Zayn’s quick answer, telling him he’d be over in a minute.

“Lou, I have to go now, okay? I’ll talk to you later,” he hissed and Louis couldn’t even retort before, merciful Heavens, Zayn hung up on him!

He scowled, quickly opening a new message and thumbing it out, sending it to Zayn with a pout.

Enjoy your blonde harlot. I hope he knows what he’s done to this family

It was a minute before Zayn replied:

You’ll get over it when I make you best man.

And, yeah, Louis couldn’t really argue with that, so he sent back a frowny emoji before tossing his phone away, falling back onto his bed with a frown.

So, he had been ditched by Zayn for a cute blonde with pretty eyes and for schoolwork, no less.

Personally, he hadn’t been planning on doing any work for the assignment anytime soon. To be perfectly honest, he was planning on hopping a plane to another country and changing his name before even cracking the textbook. But a) he had no money for a plane ticket, and b) his mum had taken his car to work because hers was in the shop, which was why he had walked home, like an animal, instead of driving or getting a ride from his so-called best friend, so even if he were to get a one-way ticket to Paraguay, he’d have no way of getting to the airport.

On a similar vein, without a car, he couldn’t go see a movie or go to the mall or do anything that involved leaving the house instead of starting his project.

Stupid project. Stupid teacher, he grumbled internally, the anger building up again.

There was a little voice in his head that told him that the sooner he got started, the sooner he would be finished with it and when that did absolutely nothing to persuade him, there was a second voice, telling him that if he actually did some work on the project, he’ll have proved his she-witch of a teacher (and a lot of other people) wrong and that was enough motivation for him to turn his head and stare at his backpack, covered in buttons and stickers for bands and witty jokes, and decide that maybe just a few questions. No getting crazy.

He groaned, rolling over until he was at the edge of his bed, then rolling off onto the floor, only slightly regretting the decision when his shoulder stung upon impact. He finally stood up and slunk over to where his bag was and grabbed it, hurling it back over to his bed so it smacked against the wall with a loud thwack, accompanied by the tinkling of several safety pins and buttons as they rattled with the hit.

He trudged back to his bed and sat down, rolling his eyes as he dug through his bag as if he was a colossal bother to have to find his binder (it was.)

He found it and pulled it out, dropping it on the bed so a few stray papers flew out and fluttered to the floor. He grumbled to himself, ignoring them as he opened it and searched for the assignment page.

“Pick a civilization that was imperialized by a major world power. It can be one that we discussed in class, or that you find during your independent research,” Louis read aloud to himself, scoffing because who in God’s name would research and do a project on a civilization they’d hadn’t even learned about. He felt his heart sink when he realized his partner. He groaned, throwing his head back before turning back to the page.

 

“What the fuck does ‘imperialized’ mean?” he asked no one in particular. He turned back to his bag, to the history textbook just peeking out of the top, and shook his head, deciding getting the book out and looking through the glossary and breaking his back trying to get his answer was too much work. So he reached over to the end of his bed for his computer, opening it and opening it to Dictionary.com.

“Im-peri-ali-za-tion,” he enunciated to himself as he typed it in, hitting search and waiting for his answer.

imperialize (v) - subject to imperial rule or influence.

He frowned again, reconsidering that plane ticket, before typing “imperial” into the bar and hitting search again.

imperial (adj) - of or relating to an empire

Okay, so imperialized meant that some countries got taken over by an empire. Easy enough.

He patted himself on the back for doing some work and considered stopping for the day, when he thought of Styles faced when he told him he actually got work done. He sighed, the things he did for his ego.

Louis turned and dug through his binder for the packet he’d gotten that day, staring at it thoughtfully for a second before writing his name at the top of the page. Good start.

He was assigned to do questions eleven to twenty and he skipped past the first ten questions, feeling accomplished for some reason, despite having done nothing.

He glanced down at the question, reading it once, then twice, then three times and again and again because what?!

11.) How would imperializing this civilization benefit your world power? Explain what your world power lacked before it imperialized this country and what it stood to gain from doing so.

Okay, what? That literally made no sense at all.

Maybe it’s a hard first question, he told himself, choosing to skip to the next question, thinking maybe he’d find the answer to the first one in the others.

To his dismay, he had no idea what to do for the second one either. Or the next one, or the next one, onward until he had his fingers laced through his hair, yanking on it in frustration. He’d decided to look a little farther ahead to see if the questions got any easier, but all that accomplished for him was a heavy feeling of nausea.

He was fucked. He actually couldn’t believe he was going to flunk his senior year because of a stupid history project. He really wished he’d paid attention in class now because he couldn’t even decipher what half the questions were even asking, let alone how to answer them.

Louis felt his resolve waning, forget not wanting to do the project, at this rate, he would never have any free time again, because he would never be able to figure out these questions. And the next day, Harry would give him a pitying look behind his stupid glasses and over to help like he was some primary school kid and his teacher would smirk at him and he’d rather jump off of a building before let her have that satisfaction so he reached for his phone again.

He couldn’t believe he was actually going to call that Styles kid and ask for help. Louis Tomlinson didn’t ask for help. He was stubborn and he would try to accomplish anything on his own, refusing any assistance, until either eventually he gave up, accomplished what he was trying to do, or the other perfect just felt bad enough for him and helped anyway (Louis Tomlinson didn’t ask for help, but he wouldn’t refuse it.)

No, he decided. He wasn’t going to ask for help, he was going to demand it. Because “please help me, I have no idea what I’m doing” sounded a lot less manly than “fucking tell me what this means right now or I swear, you’ll regret it” (demanding, threatening, same thing.)

And he was already typing out the message when he remembered that he didn’t have Harry’s number. He’d refused it earlier because his hubris was so enlarged it was unreal and now he had no dignity, no pride, and no idea what he was going to do. He was either going to have to wait for Harry to text him first, or he’d have to slink up to the kid the next day and ask for his number himself, which was almost worse than admitting he needed help. Because then, he was going back for help that he’d refused before. If that happened, he’d be helpless, stupid, and wrong.

He just sat there for a while, the idea of escaping the country sounding better by the second, when his phone buzzed in his hand and he jumped, a totally unmanly yelp leaving his mouth that he was so glad his sisters weren’t around to hear.

It was an unknown number and as soon as he slid the message open, a few more arrived, all in quick succession.

Hey, I just realized that we didn’t even pick a civilization to do the project on.

 

So.

 

What civilization do you want to do the project on?

 

This is Harry, by the way.

 

From history class.

He stared at his phone, wondering if the Gods hated him or loved him, and he typed back a reply.

I know who you are.

He stared at the message, feeling guilty.

Hi.

 

Sorry, just wanted to make sure.

 

Hi.

Louis waited for another message to arrive and when it didn’t, he raised an eyebrow at his phone questioningly.

You said there was something we had to figure out about the project?

There was a moment’s hesitation, then:

Oh, yeah! Yeah, um, we have to choose a civilization to do the project on, so… did you have one in mind?

No, I still don’t even know what it is that we’re doing, Louis thought miserably before replying.

Um… no.

He figured he should show the kid how wholly unhelpful he was straightaway, lest he get his hopes up too high (but he was played out like a sap in front of him earlier, so they probably weren’t going very high anyway.)

Well, how about Egypt? And how England tried to take it over? Like we were talking about today in class.

Louis’s mouth fell open.

We tried to take over Egypt?!

 

Um, yes.

 

When was this? Can we even do that?

 

And um, no. I mean, not anymore. Not since 1922.

Louis looked around in shock, because this was completely new information to him and he scribbled the dates down somewhere because hey, he’d probably need them.

And people just let us do this?

 

I mean, everyone was doing. France was trying to take control of it too and other stuff. We had India for a while too.

 

Louis’s jaw dropped.

How even?

Louis, don’t take this the wrong way, but

 

Did you even pay attention in class?

Louis frowned bitterly, jabbing the screen as he typed back:

Obviously not. You proved that during class today, remember?

There was a long wait between his text and Harry’s reply and he wondered if maybe he was too harsh. Especially on a kid like Harry, who was so fragile and weak-looking.

I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you. I was just trying to help.

Oh. Now Louis felt bad.

Another text buzzed in.

It just looked like she was ribbing you out really bad and it was really unfair, so I tried to put a stop to it. I didn’t

 

I didn’t mean to put my nose where it wasn’t needed.

Now Louis felt really bad.

No, don’t be sorry, I just

 

I didn’t mean it like that. Like, I really appreciate that you were looking out for me. It’s just… hard in front of the whole class, you know?

 

I understand. It sucks that she’s like that to you.

And Louis wasn’t really sure what to do with that, because besides Zayn (and Niall because Niall was a sweetie and felt bad for him even though they didn’t talk much,) no one had really ever felt for him. They kind of just got amusement out of his misfortune and abuse.

It’s okay.

 

So. The project?

 

Yeah, so does that sound good?

Britain and Egypt, I mean?

Louis felt a lot like he’d just bared his soul to Harry, though he hadn’t really said much at all, and decides for a pithy response.

Sure, but only because I don’t fully believe you that we tried to take over Egypt. Like, what?

 

Well, you’ll find out soon enough.

 

We’ll see

He smirked, putting his phone off to the side, but not before glancing at Harry’s number and, before he could tell himself not to, saved Harry’s number to his contacts. He could always erase it later.

He put it down and turned back to the packet, realizing sheepishly that it would probably be a lot easier to do the questions with an actual topic to answer on.

 

At this point, he knew there was no avoiding the textbook anymore so he slid it out of his bag and checked the index for “British Imperialism.” He found it, turned to the page, and was gutted to discover that the information there amounted to no more than two paragraphs, less than half a page. He groaned, turning back to the index and looking for “British Imperialism of Egypt.” Nothing. He looked for anything about Egypt at all and ended up with information about pharaohs and sarcophagi and spooky stuff like that and he would’ve probably bought it if he didn’t realize that all of that was BC or very, very early AD, nowhere near 1882.

He tried to keep up with it for a little longer, reckoning that if he kept searching the same spot in the book over and over, eventually, the answers to his questions would appear out of invisible ink for his efforts.

 

Several screeches of frustration and fruitless Google searches later (he decided that the questions in the packet were just too specific for Google to find the exact answer to,) he slumped over onto his side on the bed, patience and will to live quickly depleting.

Well, he figured, he’d already made a fool out of himself in front of Styles today, and the kid made a fool out of himself almost as often as he broke his glasses (read: often,) so what’s the last shreds of his dignity for a passing grade?

He grabbed his phone again, groaning exaggeratedly as he sent his distress signal.

Harry?

He waited for the reply, which came soon after.

Yes?

He sighed, feeling his pride slip away under his fingertips.

I don’t

I don’t understand the questions.

 

Oh, really? Which ones?

Louis moaned into his pillow.

All of them.

 

Oh.

 

Yeah. Oh.

 

Well, what parts are giving you trouble?

 

Let me put it this way. I had to look up what imperialism was.

 

And that didn’t help any?

 

Louis had to admire his naivety.

No. I just don’t understand anything.

He felt pretty pathetic by now but he wasn’t going to get anywhere by minimizing the problem.

Don’t worry, I’ll help you with it.

“My hero,” Louis grumbled to himself.

But, like, the questions are kinda long and specific

 

I noticed

 

Yeah, so it might be hard to explain over the phone.

His heart sank as he picked up on what Harry was saying.

Then how do you propose we go about this?

He waited patiently for the reply and when he got it, he laid back on the bed and grabbed a pillow, pressing it down on his face in hopes of suffocating himself.

Are you busy after school?

~ ~ ~

Louis wasn’t really sure how things could get worse at this point.

Not only was he failing history and his only hope for salvaging his grade what must be the hardest project known to man, he was now spending his time after school with Harry Styles.

Besides having to go with his classes to do research, Louis had never gone to the library in his high school career so he had to do some exploring to find where the fuck he was going.

Once he finally found it, he opened the door and was overwhelmed by the smell of old lady and yellowing paper. He saw the librarian staring him down, no doubt eyeing his piercings and bright red hair, decided he’d maybe pretend to chant gibberish at her as he left. Nothing scared people straight like pretending to worship the devil.

He walked past the shelves, feeling unusually small compared to the tall shelves filled to the brim with knowledge. He saw Harry sitting at a table tucked into a corner, behind the shelf closest to the wall. He was sort of glad that Harry chose a private, secluded place, if he was honest.

He walked down the line of shelves, taking his time as he went, knocking his Vans against a bookshelf when he saw fit, just to show his apathy for their meeting.

He finally made it to the back of the library and Harry grinned at him, pushing his glasses up his nose like he always did.

“Hi!” he called cheerily, waving at him and Louis held back a grimace. How could anybody be so happy to be at school?

He nodded his head as a greeting and rounded the table, already covered in textbooks and papers, dropping his bag on the ground and sitting down, leaning the chair back onto its two rear legs.

“So, where did you want to start?” Harry asked him and Louis lolled his head over to give him a look. Harry’s smile faltered and he cleared his throat, readjusting his glasses. “Right. So, question eleven is where your part started, right?”

“Yup,” Louis replied, popping the “p” at the end of the word. Harry watched him expectantly and he raised an eyebrow. “What?”

“Um…” Harry was tense, cheerfulness fading and usual nervousness shining through. “D-Did you wanna…? The packet?”

Louis rolled his eyes and sighed, like it was such a hassle to take out the work that they were supposed to be doing at the moment, and reached down to grab his binder out of his bag.

He slapped the packet onto the desk, scowling at the heavy sound it made. He glanced over the table, at the books, pencils, papers, and then noticed Harry’s own packet lying about in the mix. He saw thin, curly cursive lining the whole page and his eyes widened slightly.

“Whoa, how much did you get done?” he asked and Harry started, looking up at him then down at the papers in front of him. His cheeks flushed.

“Oh, um… I did the whole thing,” he replied and Louis spluttered, front legs of the chair hitting the floor with an echoing thunk, causing the librarians to shush them.

“You finished the whole packet?!” he squealed, ignoring the librarians’ harsh shushing, but Harry shook his head.

“O-Oh no, I just did my part… And a little bit of yours. I mean, I know you can do it, I just wanted to look over the questions so that I can teach you how to- Not that you need to be taught, just so that it makes it easier to help you and-”

“I get it,” Louis said, raising his hands to stop his babbling.

“Yeah,” Harry said, eyes darting away awkwardly. “I’m not that smart.”

“Could have fooled me,” Louis quipped, leaning back and crossing his arms over his chest. “Haven’t you got, like, the highest rank in our year?”

“Um, well, kinda?” Harry replied, still not looking at Louis. He didn’t seem to think of that as much of an accomplishment. “I mean, yeah.”

“That’s pretty incredible,” Louis said flatly. He was actually impressed but he didn’t need to show it.

“Um, thanks,” Harry said, pushing his glasses up. “I mean, it’s no big deal, really.”

“Well, coming from a kid who’s probably ranked like six-hundredth, I’d say it’s a big deal,” Louis replied, sounding more bitter than complimentary.

“Oh, come on, I’m sure you’re not six-hundredth,” Harry said and Louis glowered up at him. Him and his stupid optimism.

“Well, failing history doesn’t exactly get me up there with big leagues,” he said.

 

“Well, we’re going to change that,” Harry said, patting the packet in front of him, cheery again and Louis wondered if he could brain himself with a textbook.

“Goody-goody,” Louis drawled, grabbing Harry’s book from across the table and flipping it open.

“So where did you find all the answers to my questions?” he asked, flipping to the pages he’d been through last night so many times he had them memorized. “Because I didn’t find jack-shit.”

He glanced up, expecting not-so-little, goodie-two-shoes Styles to maybe flinch at his expletive, but the lad didn’t waver, just looking over his shoulder at the page Louis was on.

“Well, that book’s kind of just an outline of what we learn,” Harry replied, parroting the words Louis vaguely remembers hearing at the beginning of the course. “There are some answers in there, but a lot of it is in our notes.”

The look on Louis’s face must have been pretty obvious, because Harry said, “We’ll use my notes, yeah?”

“Sure,” he muttered, not looking up when he heard Harry’s chair move over or when he saw his horrid sweater vest out of the corner of his eye.

“So, first things first, tell me what you know about Britian’s imperialism,” Harry said and Louis looked up at him blankly.

“That it apparently happened,” he replied and he could almost swear the corner of Harry’s mouth twitched up.

“Okay, good start,” he said and his voice was so cheerful that he couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or serious.

“And that it started in 1882 and ended around 1922,” he said, remembering the words he’d written down the night before and Harry’s eyebrows raised, impressed.

“See, there you go!” he said, patting Louis on the back and then apparently remembering that it was Louis and retracting his hand. He cleared his throat again, fixed his glasses. “Um, that-that’s good, Louis.”

“I only know it because you told me yesterday,” Louis grumbled but Harry shook his head.

“No one is born knowing all this stuff, Louis. You learn stuff when people tell you stuff. Just the fact that you retained it is good,” he said and oddly enough, Louis felt a little better.

“So, let’s see here,” he said, leaning closer to Louis and reading the question. Louis grimaced, trying to distance himself from Harry, expecting him to smell like cheese or something equally as vile, or to hear him breathing heavily through his mouth, but to his surprise, he didn’t smell anything strange at all. In fact, if he didn’t know better, he’d think Harry actually smelled kind of… good. Not, like, fantastic, but he smelled okay. And he was breathing softly through his nose, like a normal human being. When he came back to earth, Harry was mumbling the question softly under his breath.

“Oh, see, this one is pretty easy,” he said, reaching out for a pen and Louis frowned.

“Then why was I stuck on it for a half hour?” he asked moodily and Harry looked up, eyes wide with concern.

“Well, because it’s so broad, it’s probably hard when you try to hone in on a specific topic,” Harry said. “Like, let’s look at what Britain had before it colonized Egypt.”

“Tea?” Louis asked and Harry snorted, hands flying up to cover his mouth when he did. Louis glanced up at him, eyebrows high. “Well, that was… something.”

“It’s been the bane of my existence since birth,” Harry replied, muffled through his hands.

“Well, it could be worse,” Louis said, though he wasn’t really sure how. Like, it would be okay if he snorted but didn’t have the glasses. Or the hair. Or the sweater vest. But hey, he’s sure it could be worse.

“Thanks,” Harry said, smiling hugely and Louis wondered if he’d just made this lad’s whole week. “So, anyway, good guess, but no, sadly, that’s not the answer. But thanks for playing.” Louis was staring blankly at him and Harry blushed again. “Okay, so before it colonized Egypt, Great Britain had a few other colonies.”

“But not, like, the Thirteen Colonies?” Louis asked. “Not in America.”

“Right,” he replied. “It had colonies in Malaysia, India, New Zealand, and Australia.”

“So the world just let us take over Australia?” he asked skeptically and Harry nodded, shrugging. “Everyone was doing it. America was expanding and so was the rest of the world.”

“How quaint,” Louis commented and Harry nodded.

“One, big, happy, dysfunctional family,” he agreed. “So, anyway, Britain’s biggest competitor is…?”

He stopped and Louis turned to him, waiting for him to finish his sentence, when he realized that he was expecting Louis to answer for him. And God, why was he being subjected to the “fill-in-the-blank” game?

“France?” he hazarded a guess and nearly jumped out of his skin when Harry cried, “That’s right!”

“Whoa, chill, mate, I just answered a question, I didn’t win Jeopardy!,” he said and Harry shrugged.

“Well, one day that could be the winning question on Jeopardy! and you’d get it right!” he said and Louis gaped at him, dumbfounded by his optimism despite his… situation.

“No, I wouldn’t,” he said and Harry’s smile dropped.

“Sure, you would!” Harry said. “You can’t put yourself down so much, Louis, you-”

“I didn’t answer in the form of a question,” he deadpanned and Harry sat there for a second before his face broke into a grin.

“Well, there’s always Wheel of Fortune,” he shrugged and Louis ducked his head to hide his smirk. “Okay, so basically, England wanted to keep its colonies in their control, but France wanted the colonies for themselves and England had to find a way to keep an eye on its territories.”

“Okay,” Louis said, showing that he was following along.

“And at the moment, there was no way to get to the colonies like Malaysia, India, and Hong Kong without traveling all the way around Africa, which is a huge pain in the tuchus.”

Louis stared at him. “Did you just say ‘tuchus’?”

Harry blushed again, adjusted his glasses for the tenth time. “Bum,” he amended. “Pain in the bum.” Louis raised an eyebrow at him and Harry continued. “So, the best way to keep its colonies from falling into France’s hands would be to find a way to get to its colonies faster.”

Louis nodded, ducked to scribble “Didn’t have fast enough route to colonies” on his paper and when he looked up, Harry was beaming at him.

“Um…” he said awkwardly and Harry started.

“Right,” he said. “So the best route to get there would be-”

“Through Egypt?” Louis asked.

“Through the canal between Africa and Asia/Europe,” he corrected, watching as Louis wrote the note down.

They continued much along this path, Harry telling him some information then making him guess the most important detail, patiently and graciously correcting him when he got it wrong and praising him wildly when he got it right. He also had Louis look some of the stuff up, helped him find the best way to search for the answers he needed. He was making him work for it, he wasn’t letting him get off easy, and Louis was sure, somewhere in the back of his head, he was grateful for it. But not right now.

“So, the next question-”

Louis groaned obnoxiously, slumping forward onto his books in front of him, grunting when the force shifted his eyebrow piercing.

“I think you’re right, this is probably a good stopping point for now,” Harry agreed, leaning back on his chair and cracking his back.

“What time is it?” Louis murmured from where his face was still buried in the book and Harry checked his watch.

“5:15,” he replied and Louis let out another moan.

“And we only got seven questions done?” he griped.

“Well, she wants us to go into extreme detail with every answer, you know?” he replied and Louis scoffed.

“I can’t stand her. Like, this isn’t Oxford or Harvard, it’s high school, for Christ’s sake,” he grouched. “I swear she’s a Nazi.”

And here is where Louis anticipated for Harry to come to her rescue, speak the infinite and staggering praises of Ms. Lydia Brooks, because that’s what the teacher’s pet does. He expected Harry to tell him that maybe if he wasn’t so rude and obnoxious, she wouldn’t treat him so harshly, maybe if he didn’t send out such a scary signal, he’d get treated better, and he was fully prepared to punch him in the nose when that happened.

What he didn’t anticipate was Harry humming in agreement and saying, “Yeah, she can be a right bitch sometimes.”

Louis’s head whipped up so fast he’d fear he’d given himself whiplash, but at the minute he didn’t care. He gawked at Harry, mouth dropped open, and the taller boy recoiled, cheeks burning and eyes wary.

“What?” he asked, less indignant but more anxious, like he’d said the wrong thing again.

“You just swore,” Louis said and Harry glanced around, wondering what the big deal was.

“Yeah?”

“You just swore,” he said again. “About a teacher.”

“Um, yes. That is correct,” Harry said, watching Louis’s face for some sort of answer to what the hell he was so worked up about.

“B-But you’re the teacher’s pet!” he squawked and Harry looked a bit put out by that. “You’re supposed to love all of the teachers!”

“Um, I don’t really think I’m the teacher’s pet per se,” he said, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “I just… I don’t know, I listen in class and stuff and turn my work in.”

“That’s what a teacher’s pet is!” Louis barked.

“I always thought they were the kids who left apples on the teachers’ desks or summat, right?” he asked, receiving a vacant stare from Louis. “I feel like we’re not having the same conversation.”

“But you-”

“Listen, mate, just because I have a high ranking and I take notes and turn in my work and stuff doesn’t mean that I don’t recognize a perfectly horrid woman when I see her,” Harry said, gathering some of his pens and loose papers to put away.

“But she’s nice to you! She loves you,” he said.

“Yeah, but only because I don’t really talk or cause trouble or anything,” he said, shrugging one shoulder. “And I’m not going to ignore how awful she is to you - and all those other kids - because she favors me.”

Louis stared at him for a while, watching as he carefully slid loose papers into his binder and then put it away.

“So, did you want to meet tomorrow or Friday? What works for you?” Harry asked and Louis looked up at him.

“Well, I have band practice Tuesdays and Thursdays after school and I kinda want Fridays free, you know?” he said, though he was sure that Harry hardly ever went out on the weekends. It wasn’t like he was trying to be mean or stereotype him, it was just an observation.

“So, Mondays and Wednesdays, then?” he asked and Louis nodded. “Works for me.”

“Cool,” he said, shoving all of his stuff into his bag and standing up. “Um… thanks. For your help, mate.”

“No problem,” he said, putting on that huge smile again, like he was genuinely proud of Louis despite only knowing him for, like, two days.

“Well, I’ll see you in class tomorrow?” he asked and Harry nodded. “Well, bye.” And as he started to walk away, he realized that there was only one exit and Harry was walking alongside him so of course, he’d had to deal with the awkward “said-goodbye-prematurely” thing. When they got to the door, he started walking to his car, throwing another goodbye over his shoulder just out of courtesy.

As he slid into his car, throwing his bag in the back and then turning it on, he couldn’t get the fact that Harry thought a teacher that adored him was a bitch. Like, it wasn’t like she didn’t deserve it, but he just didn’t expect Harry to care much about people besides himself. Especially people who sometimes spent their time tormenting him (not Louis personally, but others like him.) It was such a small, minor detail about Harry, but for some reason, it stuck in Louis’s mind.

~ ~ ~

Louis figured that maybe he’d try to redeem himself in front of Harry a little bit and took another stab at those questions when he was bored on Saturday afternoon and Zayn was nowhere to be found (his keen, best friend senses told him that a little, blonde Irishman was involved.) And the questions were still cryptic to him and he sort of wished that maybe Harry had told him what all the questions meant at one time instead of just a few questions and giving him some information down to the last detail. But whatever, he suspected that once this code was deciphered, he would still have a hell of a time figuring out the answer, so he decided to just call it a day after writing a few bullets of lame, vague information that he wasn’t even sure was right.

When he walked into the library on Monday after school, he was fully prepared with an excuse for why he would be answering “none” to the inevitable question “how many questions did you get done over the weekend?”

To his surprise, Harry didn’t ask that question. In fact, he didn’t ask any questions at all. He just waved to him, eyes traveling up to the top of Louis’s head, and raising an eyebrow.

“It’s blue today,” Harry said, eyes traveled up and down the electric blue streak that was dyed into his fringe, which was just peeking out under his beanie.

“Wow, so those specs are good for something after all, huh?” Louis joked, tapping one of the lenses and smirking when Harry immediately moved to readjust them along his nose.

“Well, other than how hot they make me look,” Harry returned and Louis raised a chocolate-colored eyebrow at him, the only indication of his natural hair color besides his body hair. This kid actually had a sense of humor on him.

“Right, so, before you ask, I did not do any more questions this weekend, but I can assure you, it’s not my fault,” Louis said but Harry just blinked at him.

“Oh, that’s okay,” he said. “I actually thought we were only going to do work for the project when we met up in the library, unless we thought we needed to do more work. I don’t mind you didn’t do any work.”

Louis looked at him, almost disappointed. “A-Are you sure? I had a really good excuse for it.”

Harry turned to him. “Did you want to give me your excuse? Because I’ll listen if you want.”

“No, it doesn’t matter now, it was for when you got mad at me,” he said.

“I wouldn’t get mad at you anyway,” Harry said and Louis huffed.

“So all of my planning and scheming was for naught anyway!” he sighed heavily, burying his head into his crossed arms on the table.

“Well, I can act angry if you want,” Harry said. “Wouldn’t want it all to go to waste.”

Louis looked up, just a little, over his arm. He watched as Harry’s brow furrowed in concentration, then his face contorted into the most ridiculous expression Louis had ever seen. He looked more like a cat with intestinal distress than an angry human being and Louis couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled out of his mouth.

“That’s your anger?” he asked and Harry let the expression drop, lips forming a pout instead.

“What’s wrong with it?” he said, an actual hint of whining in his voice.

“The broken glasses completely ruin it, for one,” Louis said. “It’s almost like you’ve never been angry before.”

Harry looked thoughtful at that and Louis scoffed.

“Don’t tell me you’ve never been angry, Mother Theresa,” he said and Harry smirked, shrugging his lanky shoulders. “But, like, look at what some people here do to you. You can’t tell me you have no anger about that, no aggression?” And the second the words left his mouth, Louis regretted them, because why would he mention his constant bullying to the kid and then tell him he should be angry, how stupid can you be?

But Harry didn’t look hurt or bewildered or any variation of “anger” he could come up with. He just shrugged again, expression unchanged.

“I’m honestly just a pacifist,” he said and Louis wondered what breed of pacifistic, peace-loving, Buddha angels this kid was spawned from.

“B-But they call you names and throw things at you,” he said, before he could stop himself, because the curiosity was just too great. “You… You don’t get angry? Or feel bad for yourself?”

“Not to be blunt, but I feel like feeling bad for yourself is just such a colossal waste of time. Like, what would Albert Einstein have accomplished if he just sat and moped around that he got kicked out of school? And did you know that J.K. Rowling got rejected by twelve different publishing companies before one took a chance on her and published Harry Potter?” he said sagely and Louis gasped, horrified.

“Not J.K.!” he said.

“Same with Steve Jobs,” Harry said. “If I just sit around and feel bad that people who are obviously hurting on the inside are giving me trouble, I won’t get anywhere. Which, by the way, is what’s happening now with this project.”

And Louis groaned, because of course Harry was going to nag them into working. But even as he begrudgingly pulled his book out and opened it, he looked at Harry, eyes perceiving him in a different light than before.

“How… How do you know that they’re hurting on the inside?” he asked and Harry looked up fro his notes.

“It’s like a domino effect. No one who is perfectly happy with themselves feels the need to hurt others for the benefit of their self-esteem,” he said. “When one person is hurting, they make another person hurt to feel satisfaction. And so on.”

“And you know this is true of everyone in the world?” he asked, just trying to poke holes in his wise, old man routine now.

“Of course not,” he said. “But I can say that it’s probably true for a lot of people. Because I know for a fact that some people who torment me are hurting. They just aren’t ready to accept help.” Louis stared up at him, words failing him.

“Now,” Harry said suddenly, making Louis jump. “Who wants to discuss some British-French tension?” He spoke like a game show announcer and yup, Louis was back to groaning because he may be insightful, but he was still kind of a dork.

~ ~ ~

“So, you said you have band practice on Tuesdays and Thursdays?” Harry asked on Wednesday when they met up again and Louis glanced up from the notes he was highlighting.

“Yes,” he said warily, because as informative as their last two meetings were, he didn’t really want to make casual pleasantries and conversations part of their meetings. He still wasn’t looking for a friend in Harry and he still hated this project and he still just wanted to get it done as soon as possible. And since their first due date for the questions was the day before, he’d rather get a jumpstart on the new ones so he wouldn’t have to do them later.

“What instrument do you play?” he asked and Louis sighed, capping his highlighter and slapping it down onto his book. He tried to send Harry a look that told him he was not really amused by him prying into his life but Harry either didn’t catch it or didn’t care, because he kept his eyes on Louis, bright green irises shining with curiosity.

“I don’t play an instrument,” he said curtly and Harry’s eyebrows lifted in confusion. And Louis stared back at him, because he wasn’t really sure what there was to not get about that statement.

“If you don’t play, then how are you in the school band?” he asked and Louis choked on air, the very idea making him nauseous.

“Ugh, no, are you mad?” he snapped. “I wouldn’t be caught dead in this school’s shit excuse for a band.” Harry just gave him another blank look. “I have my own band. Well, me and a few mates.”

Harry’s eyebrows raised again, this time with intrigue and interest. “Really?” he asked. “That’s so cool! What kind of music do you play?”

Louis smirked to himself, because even though he didn’t really want to make a habit out of chit-chatting with Harry Styles, he was always more than happy to talk about his band. Partly because promo was always good, but mostly because he really fucking loved his band.

“Mostly rock and covers,” he said, shrugging, twirling a pencil between his fingers.

“What are you called?” Harry asked and Louis smiled.

“The Rogue,” he said. “I came up with the name.”

“It’s cool,” Harry said, smiling and Louis shrugged again. “Do you play gigs?”

Louis’s smile dropped a little, averting his eyes. “Um, yeah, sure, a few.” It wasn’t like Harry was going to actually check how many gigs they’d played (nine,) and he definitely wasn’t going to try to come to one, he’d probably run scared at all the tattoos and piercings and the thick, heady smell of smoke in the air. Not to mention the ear-splitting music and moshing, oh God, the poor lad would probably faint. “A-Anyway, can you help me with this question?”

When Louis got home that night, he realized that Harry was actually learning quite a bit about him during their little meetings and as if that wasn’t bad enough, he knew virtually nothing about Harry that could possibly incriminate him should that information turn on him. But honestly, what other information did he need, like, just his sweater vest and glasses alone were enough to give him an edge.

Well, regardless of their playing field, he decided he was not going to tell Harry anything more about himself unless he was dying or in danger of doing so.

~ ~ ~

As the next few meetings passed, Louis was fairly surprised to find that Harry wasn’t really all that naggy like he expected. In fact, he was really laid-back, as much as he could be and still make sure they got their assignment in on time. He wasn’t creepy or weird like some people thought he was, but he was definitely dorky. But in a funny way. The best example of this was around their fourth meeting in the library.

“You know, I almost wish we’d been able to keep Egypt,” Louis had said, off-hand, and Harry had looked up at him, eyes wide in alarm and bemusement. Louis shrugged, trying to not look too embarrassed because he hadn’t actually meant to say that out loud. “Well, because then, if someone said they were from Egypt, we’d get to say ‘If you’re from Egypt, why are you white?’” he finished lamely, not expecting Harry to get it and hoping he’d just let it go (“Mean Girls” was not exactly on the frontline of “punk cinema”.)

“Oh my God, Karen, you can’t just ask people why they’re white!” Harry suddenly shrieked in a shrill, Valley-girl accent and Louis turned to him, eyes wide and jaw dropped. Harry just grinned back at him.

“You know ‘Mean Girls’?” he asked and Harry rolled his eyes at him.

“Of course I do,” he said. “I would use the excuse that I have an older sister if I wanted to be ashamed of it, but I’m not and I knew Kevin G.’s entire rap by the time I was twelve.” He was almost smug with the way he announced it and Louis was pleasantly surprised (and impressed.)

“I just… didn’t expect-”

“Didn’t expect me to watch mainstream movies?” Harry finished for him, smiling amusedly. “Thought I only watched documentaries on the making of paste and movies about the mating rituals of bugs?”

“Uh…” Louis said dumbly and Harry smirked again.

“Well, I did try that once. Not mating rituals exactly, but a movie about bugs. Not my best idea. Really should’ve read the reviews before popping in The Human Centipede’,” Harry said and Louis’s expression went from surprised to horrified.

“Oh, you poor boy!” he hissed. “Did you watch the whole thing?”

Well, depends on how you define ‘watching the whole thing’,” he shrugged. “The movie ran the whole way through to the end, but I passed out somewhere around the middle. And not like, fell asleep, I mean I completely fainted, disgusted and terrified.”

Louis snorted, even though on the inside he wished he had been that lucky. Zayn told him to watch that movie on a dare and even after a nauseous-looking Zayn asked to turn it off, he told him to keep it, wanting to prove a point. He hadn’t slept the rest of the week.

“Anyway, for such an obviously avid fan of the movie,” Harry said, leaning on his hand. “I’m surprised by how little you uphold its teachings.”

“I beg your pardon?” Louis asked. Harry just smiled and spoke again in that ridiculous Valley accent. “‘On Wednesdays, we wear pink!’”

Louis blinked, look down at himself where there was not a speck of pink on him. He turned back to Harry.

“Well, what about you? You’re not wearing it either!” he said.

“What you can see,” Harry hummed. Louis just stared at him.

“You’re not really, are you?” he asked and Harry just shrugged.

“Only one way to find out,” he chirped and Louis wondered how this was the same kid who could barely stumble out his own name on their first day as partners.

“Pass,” Louis remarked, despite his burning curiosity to find out if the boy was really wearing pink boxers because of Mean Girls.”

But really, Harry wasn’t as awkward as most people expected. Well, actually, that wasn’t true. He was every bit as awkward as people expected, but he twisted it in his favor, almost into something endearing.

But Louis wasn’t endeared and he wasn’t going to allow himself to be, not with this kid. He could tolerate him. That was it. That’s all he would allow himself to do.

Because as nice and funny as Harry was, he was subject to torment nearly as often as Louis was. And as much as Louis wished he could defy the high school hierarchy, he was smart enough to know that no one would commend him for making friends with the nerd. All he would get is mocked and that was one thing he didn’t need more of.

~ ~ ~

It was what was supposed to be their seventh meeting together that Louis showed up to the library and Harry wasn’t already there. Which was strange, because he’d seen Harry setting the stuff up at the table before he’d even made it to his locker when he walked by the library before. So, yeah. Weird.

He didn’t want to send Harry a text and rush him, wherever he was, or worse, make it seem like he actually wanted to do the work, so he just sat down at the table and alternated between texting Zayn and playing Candy Crush. He had to have been there maybe twenty minutes and was seriously considering just leaving (especially since he’d run out of lives,) when his phone started vibrating and Harry’s name was flashing across the caller ID.

“Hey, where are you?” he asked as he answered, glancing around like the other boy was hiding behind one of the shelves.

“Hey, I’m so sorry I wasn’t there when I was supposed to be,” Harry rushed out, panting heavily like he’d just been running. “But… okay, I know this sounds weird and it’s, like, short notice, but could you come and meet me out by my car?”

“Um… okay?” Louis replied, not able to imagine a reason why Harry didn’t just come meet him here. “Why?”

“It’s kind of hard to explain?” Harry said. “And, um… yeah, sorry again for not being there.”

“It’s okay,” Louis replied, because Harry sounded genuinely upset that he’d let Louis down. “I’ll be out there in a minute, okay? Which one is your car?”

“It’s the red Honda. But, um… I’m basically the last one here, so… I won’t be hard to find,” he said.

“All right, be there soon,” Louis said, standing and grabbing his bag.

“Okay,” Harry said. “Sorry again.”

“It’s all right, mate,” he said. “Bye.”

He walked through the empty halls, wondering just what it could be that Harry needed with his car and why he needed him to be there for it. Maybe he was actually a drug dealer and wanted to let Louis in on it? (Despite what his image might suggest, Louis had never touched a joint in his life, too worried about his little sisters finding out. And besides, that was a ridiculous idea anyway, just the thought of Harry’s slow, careful voice saying, “Hey, mate, can I, like… interest you in some cush?” The very thought had Louis snorting into his sleeve.) Maybe Harry had left his keys in his car and was too worried about the car to try and break in and assumed Louis knew how to pick a car lock? (He did, but that was Zayn’s fault. Not that Zayn would ever steal a car, he was just a wealth of useless knowledge.) Maybe he was a serial killer and was going to kill Louis then stuff him in his trunk and then drop him into a quarry or something and wow, where did that even come from, Louis had once seen Harry step on a bug and then check to see if it was okay, he literally wouldn’t hurt a fly.

Well, theories and conjecture aside, he knew he’d find out the reason as soon as he stepped outside, so he pushed the doors open and walked into the parking lot, which was indeed pretty barren. His eyes scanned around, looking for the red car and when he found it, he saw it and a tall, lanky figure next to it.

As he started approaching the car, the figure next to it became clearer and oh. Now he knew the reason why.

Harry turned to him and smiled sort of apologetically and Louis made a choking, gasping noise because shit.

Harry was covered, absolutely drenched in what appeared to be pasta sauce from that day’s lunch. There were chunks of tomato in his hair and all down his sweater, his khakis were stained beyond the point of rescue and Harry’s glasses were in his hands, apparently broken by the force of impact on their already weak frame. And this kid still had the heart to apologize to Louis.

“Harry!” Louis cried, jogging over to him but hesitating when he was hit by the overpowering aroma of tomato and garlic. “Wha-” he coughed. “What happened to you?!”

“Uh…” Harry started, stopping to spit a glob of sauce from his mouth before continuing. “I guess they found the leftover sauce from lunch today. Got me when I was going to get my wallet from my car.”

Louis gasped again. “‘They’?!” he crowed. “Who’s ‘they’?!”

“It’s not really all that important,” Harry shrugged and Louis nearly gagged when another bit of sauce fell and splattered onto the ground at the movement.

“Not important?! Harry, you need to report this! God, your glasses and-”

“Louis, I promise, it’s not really that big of a deal,” Harry said and Louis gaped at him. He flushed (or at least Louis thought he did. He was pretty much red everywhere already.) “It’s not the worst that’s ever happened to me.”

“It’s not the- what?!” Louis shrieked and Harry winced at his volume. “What could possibly be worse than this?!” Harry’s eyes kinda fell and his shoulders tensed up and it occurred to Louis that he may have hit a nerve. So he back-pedaled quickly and tried again. “A-Anyway, are you all right? Did they do anything else?”

“No, just made me into an Italian dish,” Harry joked and Louis couldn’t believe he was joking around at a time like this. “So… this is why I was late.”

“Harry, you have all the reason in the world to be late! You shouldn’t have even called me, you should’ve just gone home and gotten cleaned up!” Louis said.

“Well, I didn’t want you to think I’d bailed on you or anything,” Harry said meekly.

“Harry, I would’ve understood, I promise,” Louis said, wishing he could put a hand on Harry’s shoulder to comfort him and at the same time, refusing to. “Now go on home, we can work another day.”

At that, Harry glanced up, tomato-crusted eyebrow raised.

“What? No, we can still work today,” he said and Louis stared at him. “We don’t have to cancel if you don’t want to.”

“Harry,” Louis started, flabbergasted. “You’re a walking, talking lasagna. Just go home and take a shower. Maybe two. We can meet up tomorrow.”

“But you have band practice then, Lou,” Harry said and Louis was too surprised by the sound of his nickname from Harry’s mouth to argue. “The reason I wanted you to come out here was so that, if you wanted to, you could follow me in your car to my place and we could work there. Like, I’ll take a shower first, obviously. But like, if you’re not comfortable with that, we can-”

“No, no, it’s, like… it’s okay, but,” he paused, glancing up and down Harry’s form. “Are you sure you want to? Maybe it would be better if you just relaxed.”

“Honestly, it’s no problem, Louis,” he said firmly. “We don’t have to if you don’t want to, but…”

“No, we can,” Louis said for some reason, he assumed it was so that Harry would have something to get his mind off of the debacle that had happened earlier. “But I don’t have my car. Me mum needed it for work again.”

“I’ll drive you,” Harry offered. He looked down at himself, then looked back up, smiling remorsefully again and Louis wished he would stop that. Louis wasn’t the victim here. “We’ll open a window though. I, um… I assume I’m pretty rank, huh?”

“You’re not too bad,” Louis insisted. “Remind me of me grandmum’s cooking.”

“Well, glad my torment could serve as a source of nostalgia for you,” Harry said and Louis blanched.

“N-No, I didn’t mean it like that, I-”

“Louis,” Harry cut him off, smirking. “I’m kidding.” Louis sighed.

“If you weren’t covered in marinara sauce right now, I’d punch you,” Louis said, opening the back door and throwing his bag in before walking to the passenger’s seat.

“Noted,” Harry said, opening the car door and frowning, glancing at his nice, clean seat.

“Here,” Louis said, starting to take off his hoodie. Harry’s eyes widened like Louis had just offered to take the saucy demise for him.

“No, no, I’ll be fine, I’ll just get it cleaned afterwards,” he said but Louis shook his head.

“No, Styles, I think you’ve accommodated those jerk-offs enough for one day,” he said and before Harry could protest anymore, draped his hoodie over the seat. “Now sit your bum down before I cook you up and serve you for dinner.”

Harry blinked, lips curling into a smile, and nodded before sitting down, grimacing as the sauce covered Louis’s gray sweatshirt and it squished underneath him.

“Thank you,” he said, so sincerely that Louis could almost cry, damn it.

“Enough with the apologies and the gratitude, Styles! You’re acting as if I’m the one who’s wearing the latest in leftover couture, here!” he snapped and Harry ducked his head as he started the car.

“Sorry,” he muttered.

“Stop it!” Louis said, smacking Harry’s arm before he could think better of it and immediately regretting the decision. The two of them sat there for a moment, Louis’s hand still pressed to Harry’s shirt, Louis trying not to gag with the feeling under it.

“I, um… I have some napkins in the center console,” Harry said feebly and Louis nodded wordlessly, opening it and digging through the compartment for them.

“Whoever did this to you just made it personal with me,” Louis grumbled as he obsessively scrubbed his hands, squirting a little hand sanitizer afterwards just to be safe. “So tell me who did it so I can kick their arses.”

Harry started pulling out of the parking lot and shook his head. “You can just punch me instead, Louis, it’s my fault anyway.”

“How on earth is it your fault that they dumped pasta sauce on you?” Louis said, no longer joking. “Did you tell them to do it? Did you want a marinara facial?”

Harry blushed. “No, but… kicking their arses isn’t going to solve anything.”

“It sure as hell will teach them not to pour sauce on you again!” Louis said but Harry just shook his head again.

“I don’t want to cause any trouble,” Harry said and Louis wondered if he kept his halo underneath that helmet of hair.

“You’re protecting them?!” Louis screeched.

“Louis, I only have a few more months with them, it’s no use to do anything now,” he reasoned. “They won’t listen to the teachers here anyway, and I’d much rather that they pull that baloney in college and see how it goes.”

There was silence in the car for a moment, before…

“Baloney?”

“Shut up.”

~ ~ ~

It was a short car ride, about ten minutes, and the majority of it was spent with Louis trying to squeeze the names of his attackers out of Harry.

“Tell me,” Louis said.

“No,” Harry replied.

“Tell me.”

“No.”

“Tell me!”

“No!” Harry said, not at all angry or snappy, just said it. “You wanna hear it in spanish? _No.”_

Louis crossed his arms and sunk into his seat.

“You watch Teen Wolf, too?” he grumbled and Harry smirked.

“Maybe,” he said. “Anyway, this is me.”

Louis looked up as they pulled into the driveway of a nice, two-story house. It wasn’t fancy or extravagant, but cozy. The garden was small but well-maintained and the lawn was cut.

Louis grabbed his bag and followed Harry up the walkway, glancing around and trying to ignore how Harry’s shoes squished.

When Harry let them in, he took his shoes off and headed towards what Louis supposed was the laundry room.

“My bedroom is upstairs on the right,” Harry called as he walked down the hall. “You can wait for me there if you like.”

“Okay,” he replied, already heading up the stairs.

He found Harry’s room easy enough and he took a deep breath before going in, bracing himself for the Star Trek and Star Wars memorabilia, cringed that there might even be poster of the Periodic Table on the wall. When he felt he was as prepared as he could be, he sighed and walked into the room.

And Harry Styles continued to surprise him.

Instead of Spock or Vader, he found posters of John Mayer and Elvis Presley, one of the Beatles crossing Abbey Road and another of David Beckham mid-game-winning-kick. The one that surprised him the most, so much so he almost felt light-headed, was one of Kate Upton, wearing only panties, arms crossed over her breasts. Somehow, Harry Styles had the bedroom of any regular teenage lad.

Well, aside from the fact that it was really very tidy in there, desk clear and bed made. Louis’s room was a constant whirlwind of paper and guitar picks and his bed sheet had come undone a long time ago but Louis had never found the time to fix it (honestly, he just didn’t care.)

When the door opened and Harry walked in, he was still in his messy clothes.

“So, I’ll be out in just a second,” he said, walking past him and towards the en suite bathroom. “Please, make yourself at home and all that.”

“Uh, sure,” Louis said, nodding his head towards the bathroom. “Now get yourself clean, lad, you’re starting to spoil.” Harry chuckled and nodded before leaving the room into the bathroom.

As Louis heard the shower turn on, he glanced around the room awkwardly, not really sure what to do with himself, because he didn’t know Harry all that well, he didn’t want to intrude upon his personal space. He decided to just sit down on Harry’s bed, feet hanging over the side and upright, unlike what he’d do at someone like Zayn’s house, which would be sprawl himself across the entire surface of the bed and kick Zayn onto the floor when he tried to sit down next to him.

He picked up his bag and started laying out his notebook and textbook and packet, taking off his shoes and sitting Indian-style so that he was more comfortable (and not wrecking Harry’s room.) When that was done, he pulled out his phone and texted Zayn what had happened to Harry.

Are you serious?! That’s insane!

 

I know, you should’ve seen the poor lad. And he wasn’t even mad! He was apologizing to ME.

 

What would he be apologizing to you for? You suck.

 

I resent that statement.

 

Speaking of sucking, how’s Niall?

 

I hate you so much. And he’s good. Cute.

Still…

 

Still wearing those pesky clothes?

 

Still just friends.

Louis frowned a little, knowing how bummed out Zayn was that, while he and Niall were now pretty good friends, he was no closer to dating him than before.

Give it time, Zayners. You’re a lot to take in in one sitting. He probably has to take a while to absorb all the awesomeness that you are.

 

Thanks, I guess. So, how’s Styles?

 

What do you mean how’s Styles?

 

I don’t know, just

How is he?

 

Um, he’s fine I guess? Like, he’ll probably be better when he’s not covered in pasta sauce.

 

That’s not really what I meant, but okay

Louis raised an eyebrow at his phone, wondering what Zayn could’ve meant. He was just in the middle of asking him so when he heard the bathroom door’s lock click and the door creak open.

“Sorry for making you wait,” he heard Harry’s voice say and he turned his head but kept his eyes on his phone, trying to finish the text. He was about to hit “Send” when he finally let his eyes drift to where Harry was.

And he felt all of his breath leave him at once, in a huge rush, emptying his lungs until they felt completely collapsed. He felt his body go numb, fingers going limp so the phone slipped through them and plopped onto the bed.

Because standing right before him, emerging from the bathroom in nothing but a fluffy, white towel hanging low off his hips, was a Greek God, with a thin, built torso that went on for miles upon miles, chiseled abs and pecs set deeply into tanned skin, clear, sparkling droplets of water still dotted across it. His arms were strong and the skin was pulled tautly over them, muscly and firm. His hair wasn’t fully dry yet but it was starting to, drying into curls framing his face and falling across his forehead. Right underneath that curly, chocolate fringe were two, bright, sparkling green eyes, the color of the treetops with sunlight shining through them. Where the towel was hanging off of those thin hips, there was a deep, sculpted v-line, a still damp happy trail disappearing beneath the towel and Louis felt weak in the knees.

Not just because of the tight muscles and endless torso and strong arms, but because of one other thing that Louis was almost always a goner for.

Tattoos.

There weren’t that many, a few on his upper arms and across the very top of his chest. The two that most caught his attention were the two swallows, flying towards each other jovially, right below his collarbone.

Louis’s eyes were locked onto those two birds, unable to look away until he heard someone calling his name. In a slow, calculated voice.

“Louis?” he snapped his head up quickly, which he almost wish he hadn’t done, because now he was staring into those endless, forest green eyes and was trapped there too. “Louis, you okay, mate?”

He was finally able to shake himself from of the trance of those hypnotizing eyes and captivating tattoos and he was able to take in the whole picture now and how.

How could this be possible?

Because somehow, by some astronomically impossible feat, that God was Harry fucking Styles.

“U-Uh, yeah!” he squeaked, much too loud, but he was still pretty proud of himself for just that, having expected himself to just make some sort of gurgling noise instead. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Yeah.”

“Um, okay,” Harry said, laughing a little. “Sorry, I forgot to grab some other clothes, so I’ll just…” he trailed off, bending over slightly to rummage through his drawer and while he did, Louis was able to see the muscles in his arms and shoulders stretching as he moved about. He stood back up, much too soon in Louis’s opinion, holding a pair of black briefs (Oh Jesus) before heading into his closet and shutting the door behind him.

As soon as Harry disappeared, Louis was dropped back down to Earth, swiftly and right on his ass, and he shoved his hands into his hair, very much panicking.

How?! How on Earth could someone so fantastic be hiding under those sweaters and khakis and all that hair gel? He was pretty sure the rules of the universe didn’t work like that. You were either subtly attractive, like Niall, who you could look at and see just a buddy and then you look at him some more and you’re like “wow, you’re cute,” or you were unmistakably, smack-you-in-the-face-with-it attractive, like Zayn, who had to flutter his mile-long eyelashes once and everyone’s pants went flying (everyone’s except Niall’s apparently.) But Harry, Harry, had somehow managed to go from completely-not-really-that-attractive-unless-you-were-into-the-nerd-thing to holy-shit-I’d-hit-that-forwards-sideways-backwards-upside-down-every-day-of-the-week-and-twice-on-Sundays in literally a second. And Louis almost felt bad thinking of him that way, because he had this almost angelic quality to him too, untouchable, like a Gucci model, but one you’d want to take home to your gran.

And Louis wasn’t really sure how to handle this new, flawless specimen that he’d once known as Harry Styles, because he knew, somewhere deep down inside of him, that it was still the same guy, same dorky personality, same lame jokes, same squawking giggle, but it was now encased in this vessel of absolute perfection and he wasn’t sure he could be the same around him.

Okay, okay, relax, he told himself. Maybe Harry wasn’t as attractive as he’d originally thought. Maybe just seeing him with his hair unkempt and without the sweater vest had thrown him off guard and he’d somehow conjured up that immaculate visage.

And then the door was opening and Harry stepped out again, shirtless but with denim jeans still slung low over his hips, and nope, nope, he hadn’t imagined it, Harry just suddenly looked that good.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Harry asked, eyeing Louis’s slack-jawed expression concernedly and Louis just found himself nodding numbly.

“Uh….” he said articulately and Harry raised his eyebrows again and they disappeared underneath his still-wet fringe and Louis didn’t have much time to gather himself before he ended up just babbling out, “Tattoos?”

Harry blinked, as if trying to figure out what he meant, then glanced down and going “oh” as if just remembering they were there. When he looked back up, he just smiled and shrugged.

“Yeah,” he said plainly. His mouth quirked up slightly, eyes glittering with mischief. “What, didn’t expect them?”

Louis spluttered before answering, “Of course not!” his mouth flapped for a few seconds before he could form words again. “I-I just… you wear a sweater vest.”

Harry gave him a weird, amused look before crossing the room back towards his bureau, opening a shelf and digging through it.

“Yeah, but I always thought it was kind of my business what I decided to put underneath it, you know?” he said, pulling out a shirt and, regrettably, pulling it on, giving Louis a show of his back muscles flexing as he raised his arms. When Harry turned around, Louis’s eyes snapped away from where they’d been before and he didn’t look back right away to make sure he hadn’t been caught. When he did look back, he was struck by how well the black t-shirt (for the Ramones?! Harry knew the Ramones?!) fit him, stretching tight across his chest and almost showing off the muscles there.

“W-Well, of course it’s your business,” Louis said. “Do you honestly think I’m judging you for having tattoos?” He gestured to his own heavily-inked arm. Harry smiled again. “I just honestly wouldn’t have expected it in a million years. You just seem too…”

“Goodie-goodie?” Harry said and Louis tried to act like that wasn’t what he was about to say.

“Clean cut… for tattoos,” he corrected. “You know, just a little more conservative, you know?”

“I do,” Harry said, nodding, grabbing his bag from where he’d dropped it by his desk, as well as a small, plastic container.

He made his way over to the bed and dropped the bag, bending over a little and shaking his hair out with… wow, were his hands always that big? When he stood back up, he was just tucking his hair over to the side and by now the curls were almost dry, showing off their full volume and the way they formed those luxurious, chocolate coils and Jesus.

He sat down on the bed across from Louis and picked up the case, flipping it open and pulling out a pair of glasses, remarkably with no tape in the middle holding it together.

He slipped them on over his ears, which, for the first time, Louis couldn’t see amidst all that hair. Harry blinked as he adjusted to the glasses and Louis noticed that they weren’t thick and gaudy like his other ones, they were more attractive, black Ray-Bans that didn’t make him look ridiculous and kind of looked really cute on him, fuck. His other glasses, with their obnoxious round frames and yellowing tape in the center, became kind of the focus of his face and now Louis could see the other aspects of it, like those shimmering green eyes and that dimple that appeared every time Harry smiled and his perfect, straight, white teeth and those pink, cupid’s-bow lips and wow, how had he not noticed all those features before?

And seeing Harry, with his curls falling over his eyes as he pulls his notes from his binder and teeth digging into bottom lip as he tried to find his place in his book, was doing really, really weird things to Louis’s belly, making it swoop and pop like fireworks and flutter like butterflies and making it build with a heat not unlike a hearth but dirtier, filthier, lower, lower in his stomach and he realized with much alarm and perplexity that it was entirely possibly that he wanted to have sex with Harry Styles.

Not that he was certain on this point, but he knew the familiar spiral of arousal low in his stomach fairly well (he’d never slept with anybody, but he was a teenage boy, for God’s sakes, he knew.) He knew it from the times he’d made out with his exes or some nameless guy at a party, from the videos he’d pull up on his computer when nobody else was home, from the time he’d seen Liam take his shirt off in the locker room before he came to his senses and realized no because it was Liam.

But regardless of how or when he’d become acquainted with the feeling, it didn’t change the fact that he was feeling it right now, in the bedroom of a kid he barely knew, a kid who just so happened to be the biggest nerd(?) at his school. And that was really freaking him out.

Because he was still Harry. He still had the same face, just unobstructed by the spectacles, and the same figure, long, lanky, and tall, and the same voice. He was still Harry, just… different. Hotter, like he’d been let out of his cage and freed to roam the world of the living.

And seriously, how could this even be possible? Like, why would somebody with a face and body and everything like that hide it from everyone? Why would he hide his gorgeousness from the world when the alternative was to be brutally mocked and taunted every day of his life?

If Harry showed up to school like this; hair down, thinner glasses, maybe even contacts over those disabling green eyes, and clothes that showed off just how fit he was in all the right places, he’d never have any problems ever again. Seriously, Harry was the kind of attractive that allowed you to cruise through life no problem, he was the kind of beautiful where people just dropped things in your lap and said, “Here you go, you’re hot enough to handle this responsibility, have a nice day.” The boys at school would want to be him but would have to settle for second best, befriending him, and girls would be creaming their drawers and throwing themselves at him instead of scoffing at the very sight of him.

Louis wondered if Harry was even aware of the potential he had for normalcy, to make a complete one-eighty to the life he led right now, in what he suspected could be overnight. And the question was churning in his chest, burning his tongue until he couldn’t hold it in anymore and he couldn’t even stop himself before he blurted out,

“Why don’t you look like this at school?”

Harry glanced up, looking away from his work and fixing him with a confused, yet not completely ignorant look.

“I’m not sure I know what you mean,” he replied, obvious question hanging on the end of his words and Louis gulped, knocking around the ways he could possibly word this, because he couldn’t just come out and tell Harry he was hot, because a) he wasn’t entirely certain this wasn’t a mirage, b) he didn’t want Harry to get all big-headed, and c) his pride was much too inflated.

“I-I mean… like, you look so different. Like… you look like some of the other kids at school,” he said and Harry let his eyebrow raise again, like Louis had maybe insulted him but he was giving him a chance to redeem himself (and Louis took it.) “No, no, not like that, but like…” his eyes trailed up and down Harry’s form, trying to find the least incriminating feature about it. “Your hair.”

Harry looked up, as if trying to catch his hair in his field of vision. He ran a hand through it, shaking the last of the water out and Louis gulped as he watched the way his hand nearly disappeared into the mess of curls. “What about it?” he asked.

“W-Well… it’s- I didn’t even know it was curly!” he said, though now that he thought about it, he couldn’t imagine any other type of hair on him. The curls just fit him. “And that there was so much of it!”

Harry chuckled, combing it back with his fingers again. “Yeah, it’s quite a lot,” he agreed. “It’s a bit of a pain, sometimes, always falls in my eyes and I have to brush it away constantly. S’why I slick it back all the time.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to just cut it?” Louis asked and was surprised when Harry shot him a look like Louis just suggested he kill his mother.

“No!” he yelped. “I love my hair!” He pet the top of his head like he was petting a dog.

“Then why don’t you wear it down?” Louis asked and the curly-haired boy turned to him, looking like he wasn’t quite sure what to say.

“Because it gets in the way?” he said. “Did I say that already or did I just imagine it?” He wasn’t being sarcastic in the least bit, he was genuinely wondering whether or not he’d said it. Louis was pretty sure that sarcasm was a once in a blue moon thing for this kid.

“No, no, you said it, I just… I don’t know, it seems like a lot of trouble if you like it anyway,” he said. “It can’t be easy to tame all of that.”

Harry’s face turned grim and he nodded. “Lost many combs this way.”

“But don’t you think you’d be happier if you wore it down at school? I mean, they’d have to stop calling you ‘helmet head’,” he said and Harry just shrugged, which he seemed very prone to doing.

“If they don’t like my helmet head, that’s their problem,” he said. “I prefer actually being able to see.” He waved a hand in front of his face, smirking.

“And about that,” Louis said and Harry dropped his hand, listening intently. “What about your glasses? Like, those are so much nicer than your other ones! And they’re not broken.”

“Well, yeah, these are my ‘nice’ glasses. For being at home or when I have to go out and stuff. Can’t go to a wedding with tape on my specs, right?” he said.

“But why don’t you wear them to school?” Louis asked.

“Because they’d get broken,” Harry said simply. “And these are more expensive than my other ones, I get a new pair like my ‘school’ ones every month or so because if they aren’t broken by someone at school, I usually trip and break them anyway. They’re cheaper.” He glanced over at his desk, where his other glasses were resting in two pieces, the arms sticking up as if in surrender. “She’s gonna kill me, those are the third this month.”

“That’s a lot of money on glasses,” Louis said, trying to sound off-hand and looking down at his textbook, trying to at least pretend he was working. “Why don’t you just wear contacts?”

Harry grimaced. “I tried those once, back in primary. They irritated my eyes something awful. One time my cousin came over one day when I had been wearing them and he asked me if I was strung out,” he shook his head, smiling. “Maybe I could try them again now that I’m older, but I don’t see any pressing need for them.”

“Not even constantly breaking your glasses?” Louis prompted and Harry, once again, shrugged.

“We’re insured,” he said and Louis blinked at him.

“Well, maybe you should consider wearing the nicer ones to school. They seem to fit better. You haven’t had to fix them once,” he noted and Harry seemed to think on that.

“I guess you’re right,” he said. “I don’t know, fixing them has just become second nature, like an instinct. Doesn’t bother me anymore.”

Louis paused, staring down at his book and reading the same three words over and over again.

“Does anything bother you?”

“Nothing comes to mind.”

~ ~ ~

At some point, they had finally buckled down and decided to get some work down and Harry had just suggested they take a break.

“You want something to drink or something?” he asked, smiling so that dimple was showing and Louis tried to ignore it.

“Sure, you have Diet Coke?”

Harry smiled and nodded, standing up and stretching, revealing a sliver of white skin and the very top of his boxers from under the t-shirt that was definitely too tight for him now, before padding out of the room. Louis gulped, mouth suddenly feeling very dry and very in need of that drink.

He wasn’t sure how much longer he could do this.

The silences that stretched between him asking a question and Harry answering it felt incredibly awkward, at least for him, like there was something he was supposed to be saying something but he didn’t know what it was or how to word it. It was that giddy, full-to-bursting feeling one gets when they’re around someone that they want to impress or, for instance, someone who was really hot, so incredibly hot you didn’t know what to do with yourself.

And he was used to Harry being smart, but now he was unnaturally attractive and smart and he was just making Louis feel really weird and uncomfortable in his skin. Louis could be in the middle of a question and Harry would look over at him with those big eyes and he’d know that he was the center of his attention right then, he had the undivided attention of this really stunning guy, and he’d suddenly forget what he was even asking and would end up stuttering until he told him to “forget it.”

Louis found himself actually wanting to giggle every time Harry opened his mouth, like a giddy school-girl, and Louis did not giggle.

Louis quite frankly felt a bit betrayed and blind-sided. It wasn’t really fair for Harry to hide his true beauty and then whip it out out of nowhere and reduce Louis to a puddle of piercings, tattoo ink, and multi-colored hair. At least without a little warning.

When Harry came back into the room, two sodas in hand (literally, he was holding both cans in one hand and he didn’t even want to think about that,) Louis was proper annoyed.

“All right, what’s your deal?” Louis snapped and Harry jumped, looking around, trying to figure out who he was talking to.

“Me?” he asked, pointing to himself. “Didn’t you say you wanted Diet?”

“No, not that,” he griped. “Your clothes! And the hair and the glasses! Like, no offense, I’m all for originality, but the stuff you wear to school is not… normal.”

“What’s normal to you?” Harry asked curiously.

“What you’re wearing right now!” Louis said. “Like, the t-shirt and jeans!”

“I wear jeans to school,” Harry pointed out, walking over to Louis and handing him his drink.

“Yeah, but not ones that fit!” Louis retorted. “They always come up past your ankles and show your socks and your ruddy sneakers! And you wear those khakis, too, and they don’t fit either! But you obviously have clothes that fit, so why don’t you wear them?”

Harry sat down on the bed, cracked his soda open, and took a pull. He seemed utterly disinterested in giving Louis answers right away.

“I don’t usually have clothes that fit,” Harry said finally, leaning back into his pillows. “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but I’m a tall guy. And gangly. And, like, I never stop growing. I’ve grown at least four inches every year for the past three years. And I’m always growing so fast that my mum can hardly keep up with buying me clothes, you know?” He took another swig of his drink.

“My mum’s a nurse, right? And she’s really busy, a lot of the times she’s on the night shift and doesn’t get home until late. So she sleeps through during the day or, when she works the day shift, she pretty much collapses the second she gets home. So she’s usually really too busy to buy me clothes and a lot of the time, I don’t wanna ask her to go out and buy me stuff, because I want her to be able to rest. I usually just wear the same stuff even though it’s too small until she notices and forces me to tell her what I need her to buy. And sometimes she’ll go out and get me stuff but she’ll think I’m still the same size and they’ll be too small and she’ll have to return them.”

“So you tell her to buy you khakis and stuff?” Louis asked and Harry’s cheeks flushed a little bit, running his finger around the rim of the soda can.

“N-No, but… okay, like, this is really embarrassing, but when I was younger, I was a really big momma’s boy. Kind of still am,” he admitted. “Anyway, when I was little, my mum took me out and found this little outfit with the khakis and nice shirts and bowties and told me how handsome and stuff I looked in it. And she seemed to really like it and it seemed to make her happy, so I told her that that was the kind of clothing I liked to wear. And it just kinda stuck.”

“And she believed you when you said that you liked wearing that up to age eighteen?” Louis asked incredulously, remembering how, at age 12, he’d told his mother firmly that he would no longer be wearing cargo shorts or graphic tees, he’d be wearing skinny jeans and shirts with pictures of skulls on them. He’d gotten a stern talking to about attitude, but eventually he got his way (he was a mother’s boy as well, even though he wouldn’t admit it, but his style was very important to him. He made it up to her by getting a tattoo of her name on his arm, which, admittedly, wasn’t as well received as he’d hoped.)

“No,” Harry said. “She’s always asking me if I want something else, but I don’t want her to go to the trouble of having to find all the new stuff and spending all that money on a completely different wardrobe. I think she knows that I kinda want something different, but I keep insisting I don’t. So… yeah.”

Louis just stared at him for a while. “Are you Jesus?”

Harry snorted, shaking his head.

“No,” he said. “I’m just too much of a wimp to ask my mum to go a little out of her way.”

“Well, how about, next time she asks, you tell her what you want,” Louis suggested. “If she keeps asking, then she probably doesn’t mind.” Harry watched Louis for a second, finger now tapping the side of the can.

“Why?” he asked.

“Uh…” Louis said. He wasn’t really sure. “Because… I don’t know, wouldn’t you rather be in clothes that you like?”

“I don’t mind my clothes now,” Harry replied.

“Well, the sweater vests can’t be comfortable,” Louis said.

“They’re actually very cozy,” Harry remarked.

 

“And the bowties? You don’t mind looking like a milkman?” Louis asked, mouth dry again.

“They’re cool,” Harry said, shrugging. “Louis, I think you’re trying to ask a very specific question, aren’t you?”

Harry was fixing him with those dark, endless eyes, beguiling him to answer the question, gently but firmly. He wasn’t demanding that Louis talk, but he wasn’t going to get out of doing it easily. Louis felt very naked under the gaze and he hoped Harry wouldn’t use it often because if he did, he was sure he’d do whatever the other lad wanted.

“I don’t…” he tried, trailing off when he saw those eyes again.

“Louis…” Harry prompted. He sighed.

“Fine,” he huffed. “Why… Don’t you want to dress normal for school? Like, you have the option to not get made fun of. But you’re throwing it away because it’s easier to pull back your hair and it’s easier to replace your other glasses and it’s easy to wear that stuff instead of asking your mom to buy you different clothes. Like, I know all of that’s easy, but isn’t the rest of it hard?”

“You mean the getting made fun of,” Harry said, not a question, a statement. Louis nodded, eyes cast down. Now that the question had come out of his mouth, he was sort of ashamed for asking it.

“Yeah, it’s hard. Like, mostly I ignore it, but there are times when I can’t, like when I have to drag my history partner to my house because someone thinks it’s funny to throw pasta sauce at me,” he said.

“Tell me who did it,” Louis said, hoping to catch him off guard.

“No,” Harry replied, without missing a beat. “And it sucks, yeah, but I’m not going to go out of my way to please someone else. Like, since when do we live in a world where you have to wear what everyone else does and the penalty for not doing so is someone ruining your clothes and your day by throwing food at you? Like, do you see how ridiculous that is?”

Louis nodded, not looking up.

“I’m content with my slicked-back hair and my thick glasses and my stupid clothes,” he said.

“They’re not stu-” Louis tried to say, but Harry wasn’t done quite yet.

“And it might not make other people happy, but it makes me happy. And ninety-nine percent of the time, I am completely content with letting myself go by the wayside so that everyone else is happy. I don’t fight back, I don’t argue, I don’t incriminate anybody,” he explained slowly, firmly. “But I almost won’t change. For some reason, people become angry when they see how I look.”

He paused, turned so those eyes were locked with Louis’s again.

“I don’t have to give them trouble, I don’t even have to talk to them,” he said. “But I make them angry. And you know what? That’s okay. I’m not going to get down on myself because someone else decides to be unhappy about something completely irrelevant to themselves.

“So, I’ll continue wearing what I like and they’ll continue to be angry, but I’m happy and content and they’re angry and hateful. So, I feel like I’m kind of the winner there, right?”

Louis was speechless, any and all words completely vanished as he took in what Harry had said. He let his eyes run over him again and they became locked onto the black lettering etched across his wrist.

I can’t change.

He tried to swallow but found his throat so dry it hurt.

“I don’t think we’re going to get much more done tonight, huh?” Harry asked lightly, glancing at the books then back at Louis. “You wanna call it quits?”

“U-Uh, n-no, we don’t have to, if you wanna-”

“Louis, really, it’s all right,” Harry said, easy smile back on his face. “It’s kinda later than usual anyway because we had to take that detour. We’ll just get more done in class and on Monday, okay? Maybe we could meet up on the weekend if we feel like we need it.”

Louis nodded numbly again, mortified.

“I-I’ll just go, then,” he mumbled, starting to pack up his things when Harry’s voice piped up again.

“Do you have a ride home?” he asked and shit, no, he didn’t. Harry must’ve noticed the way his eyes widened and his lips pursed, because he smiled again. “I’ll take you home, no worries.”

“Oh, no, I’ll just call Zayn, it’s-”

“Louis, come on,” he said, standing up and moving to the closet to slip on a pair of Converse. “I’ll give you a ride, it’s no big deal.”

The shorter of the two gulped and nodded, muttering a quiet “thank you” as he followed him down the stairs.

~ ~ ~

The ride to Louis’s house was silent, save for the radio and every now and again when Louis told him which way to go. He kept his bag in his lap, stomach churning with embarrassment and shame.

Of course he wasn’t supposed to change himself to please other people. That’s kind of what Louis was all about, right? He changed his hair color every week, he wore chains and spikes and he had tattoos and he didn’t care. But for some reason, he must’ve gotten the message confused. It didn’t matter that Harry chose to dress how he wanted and didn’t care about anyone else, so had he.

But it sort of occurred to him that Louis’s goal hadn’t only been to wear what he wanted, but to also make people angry. Louis went out of his way to irritate people, for Harry, it was just an absolute.

Louis wondered how much time and energy he’d wasted over the years trying to inflame people instead of just enjoying himself.

Harry was tapping along to the rhythm of the song on the radio on the steering wheel when he looked over and saw Louis with his head down, holding tight to his back.

He chuckled a little, reaching a long arm over to pat at Louis’s shoulder gently.

“Come on, Louis, please don’t be so upset,” he said soothingly. “I’m not mad. I just honestly thought we were past the point of productive tonight.”

Louis didn’t say anything and he sighed quietly. “I’m sorry if I…” he paused, trying to find the right words. “was aggressive with my explanation earlier. I didn’t mean-” He was interrupted by Louis’s shrill voice.

“What?!” he shrieked and Harry swerved a little in surprise. “You’re apologizing to me?!” He stared at Harry with huge, blue eyes and Harry shrugged sheepishly.

“I mean, yeah? You just seemed really upset and I didn’t want you to think that I-”

“Do you honestly think that for one second you were aggressive back there?” Louis asked and Harry blushed again, leaning his elbow on the side of the door and running his fingers through his hair.

“No?” he said. “I mean, not really, but I can never really tell, you’re the only person I’ve really…” he cleared his throat awkwardly and Louis really hoped to God that he wasn’t about to say what he suspected he was going to. “You’re the first person I’ve really talked to for more than a few minutes. In a long time, anyway.”

Louis felt his heart rocket into his throat then plummet to his feet.

“So I forced you to explain your wardrobe choices and basically told you that you didn’t dress like a normal person,” Louis groaned, dropping his head onto the bag, cheeks on fire.

“Louis, you didn’t force me to do anything,” Harry insisted. “You didn’t make me uncomfortable by asking and it’s actually a valid question, so…”

“But you didn’t owe me an explanation!” Louis half-wailed into his bag. “I, like, tried to change you and that was horrible and awful of me and I’m so, so sorry.”

“Louis! Louis, please, calm down, mate,” Harry said, patting his arm again. “You have nothing to be sorry for. I’m not offended!”

“But, like, you do exactly what you’re supposed to do with yourself, you do what you want and wear what you want and act how you want because it’s what makes you happy and I tried to tell you that that wasn’t normal and it was wrong, like what if you had changed and made yourself miserable, I’d never forgive myself and-”

“Louis, please, relax!” Harry spoke over him, trying to soothe him. “Look, I don’t want you to feel bad. I just wanted you to understand where I’m coming from. It’s really okay.”

Louis’s face was bright red, burning with all the blood rushing to it and he moaned again. “I can’t ever feel smart around you, I’m so stupid.”

“Hey,” Harry said sternly, frowning. “You’re not stupid, okay? You were smart enough to even ask, which is what most people don’t even think to do. You’re the only one who ever realized that I had an option.”

“But that was only because I saw you in other clothes! I saw your other option!” Louis griped.

“Well, maybe that’s because no one else took the time to try and get to know me,” he said, smiling a little bit at Louis, who frowned a little. Getting to know Harry hadn’t been his original plan at all. It still sort of wasn’t. He wasn’t quite sure anymore.

“Is this it?” Harry asked, pulling up to Louis’s house and the older boy nodded. “Cool.” He turned off the car and Louis got out and as he turned back to say goodbye and thank him, he noticed Harry’s eyes on him, sincere, like they always were.

“Look, I don’t want you to think that because you know my ‘secret’, that you feel like you have to be my ‘buddy’,” he said, and Louis was brought back to their first day as partners, and the memory of what he’d said to Harry made him feel sort of sick. “I’m still the same guy and if you just want to be history partners and then part ways forever afterwards, I’m not going to follow you around like a lost puppy.”

“Har-”

“But,” he said. “If you do want to be friends,” he grinned as he restarted the car and the radio started up again. “I wouldn’t object.”

And Louis really wasn’t sure what to say, so he just nodded, thanked Harry, closed the door, and stayed rooted to the same spot until Harry’s car was gone.

Afterwards, he headed inside, pecked his mother on the cheek briefly before heading upstairs and sitting himself on his bed, the lesson Harry’d taught him slowly retreating to the back of his mind to make room for image after image of Harry in his true form, as it were. Bouncing curls, goofy grin completely with dimple deep enough to swim in, long, muscular body, tattoos.

He couldn’t get Harry out of his head for the rest of the night, wishing he’d taken a picture so he could prove to himself that that Harry actually existed in the morning, when he went to school and saw the Harry he was accustomed to, sweater vest, broken glasses, hair gel Harry.

It wasn’t that he thought that regular Harry was unattractive, he just wasn’t attracted to him at that point, and he was sort of grateful for it, because otherwise he’d serve to be a huge distraction.

~ ~ ~

When Louis woke up the next morning, the events of the night before had slowly returned to him and he was overcome with a sense of nervousness of having to see Harry again, sit by him, work with him, after the conversation they’d had.

Because even though Harry had said he was completely forgiven, he still didn’t feel great about what he’d said, he felt like he hadn’t completely forgiven himself yet. But, guilt aside, he knew he had to go to school that day, wanted to save bunking off for a really good reason and tension with a kid he might never see again in a few months was not a good enough reason.

So he went to school and went about his day much as he usually did, Harry was in his second period math class, but they never usually talked because they were on opposite sides of the room, and by the time lunch rolled around, he was more or less calmed down.

He made his way over to their usual table, slightly surprised when he didn’t just see a dark quiff peeking above the crows, but a shock of blonde hair as well.

As he made his way over, watching Zayn lean in and whisper something in Niall’s ear that made him giggle and swat at him, he noticed the way Zayn’s whole face lit up when he made the other boy smiled and he could see why he liked Niall so much. He would probably do nothing but good for him.

He was already raising an arm to wave at Zayn when someone bumped into his shoulder, sending the other person’s books tumbling to the floor and making him stumble.

He whipped around, eyes narrowed and ready to strike, when he looked down to see the poor, little freshman, eyes wide and nervous as he took in Louis’s appearance, and Louis realized how utterly scared he looked. And he thought that maybe he didn’t want to make people scared anymore.

“Sorry about that, mate,” he said, bending down and helping him pick up some of his books. “Wasn’t watching where I was going.”

“Oh, n-no, it’s fine,” the other boy said, taking the books that Louis held out. “Thanks.”

“No problem. Sorry again,” Louis said, smiling and waving as he turned around and walked the rest of the way towards their table.

When he got there, Zayn was staring at him with wide, suspicious eyes.

“What was that about?” he asked as Louis sat down and sifted through his bag for his by-now crumpled brown lunch bag. “Usually, you’d tear that kid apart. Are you feeling okay?”

Louis reached into his bag, pulling out a sad, flattened, used-to-be peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

“Well, maybe I don’t want to haunt the nightmares of children anymore,” Louis sniffed before turning to Niall. “Hello, Niall, how are you? So sorry Zayn’s making me out to be some sort of monster. Cruel, heartless man, he is.”

“Hi, Louis,” Niall replied, smiling. “It’s no problem, really. I know you’re not like that.”

 

Louis breathed a laugh, smacking a hand on the table. “See, he’s only been here five minutes and already I like him more than you,” he said to Zayn, who rolled his eyes at him. “So, little, blonde one, what made you decide to come join me and this vile miscreant for lunch today?”

“Well, Niall invited me to sit with him and his friends for lunch,” Zayn started.

“But then he said he didn’t want to leave you alone,” Niall continued.

“Because I’m pretty much your only friend,” Zayn teased and Louis threw a piece of crust at him.

“And so I’m here,” Niall finished, smiling.

Louis looked between the two warily. Already finishing each other’s sentences. Ew.

“Well, Niall, I must thank you vehemently, for now my overall friend count is up to two,” he said, smirking when Niall laughed. “Wish I’d brought me punch card, three more friends and I get a free pie.” Niall dissolved into giggles and Zayn’s face was a curious combination of enamored and irked.

As Louis tried to maneuver the second half of his sandwich out of the bag without getting any peanut butter on himself, his phone buzzed in the pocket of his bag. He wiped his hands off and retrieved it.

Stop being funnier than me in front of him.

Louis glanced up at Zayn, whose face was serious, eyes widening meaningfully and he smirked.

Jealous already? Is this a bad time to tell you we made out in the equipment room during third period?

He watched with glee as Zayn read the text and promptly went extremely red.

That’s not even funny, Louis, don’t even joke.

 

Look, he wanted you to sit with him at lunch and he was willing to leave his friends so that he could. And if he has fun over here, he’ll want to keep coming back. So, by winning him over with my charm, I’m doing you a favor.

There was no reply for a few seconds, then:

I hate when the fate of my life rests on you.

 

It’s a burden to carry, but I will carry it semi-responsibly.

After that, Louis put his phone away and turned back to Niall, resting his chin on his entwined fingers.

“So Niall,” he started. “How’s your and Zayner’s project going? Working hard?” Zayn’s head snapped up, eyes wild with panic, but luckily, Niall was blissfully oblivious.

“Yeah, it’s coming along,” he said. “Zayn’s a lot smarter than people give him credit for.”

“People, aka you,” Zayn said pointedly to Louis, who shrugged.

“When you give me a reason to believe you’re smart, I’ll believe it,” he said.

“Speaking of the project, how’s yours? Harry whipping you into shape?” Zayn asked, grinning cheekily and Louis huffed, blowing a lock of his fringe out of his eyes, pretending to be unfazed.

“He’s all right,” Louis said noncommittally, hoping Zayn didn’t notice his change in demeanor. “He’s really intelligent. And he doesn’t harp at me when I don’t know anything, so.” He shrugged again.

“He’s really nice,” Niall piped up. “He sat next to me in AP Calculus last semester and I didn’t get it at all but he helped me. I would’ve failed if it wasn’t for him.”

Louis’s ears perked up, curiosity piqued. “Oh, yeah?” he asked.

“Yeah, he’s so nice and friendly, it sucks that he gets bullied like he does,” the blonde said. “He doesn’t deserve it.”

Louis was starting to like Niall more and more as time went on. He nodded in agreement.

“He’s been a great help to me as well,” he said.

“Look at that, Lou, maybe your tally will be up to three friends if you play your cards right,” Zayn snickered and Louis rolled his eyes, reaching into his bag and pulling out a cookie.

“Hey, Lou?” he heard a voice call him from behind and he turned around to stare right into the two greenest eyes he’d ever seen, so green it was unreal, even through the thick lenses in front of them.

“Oh, hey, Harry,” Louis said a little shakily, trying to mask it with a cough.

“I have something for you,” he said, reaching into his messenger bag and pulling out a gray hoodie. Louis’s gray hoodie. “I didn’t get a chance to give it back before I drove you home. But I washed it for you and everything, so… here you go!”

“Oh, thanks,” Louis said, eyes strictly on the sweatshirt as he took it.

“No worries,” the younger boy replied, pushing his glasses back up his nose (they were an as-of-yet unbroken pair of his thick “school” glasses) and standing up to his full height. “See you in history?”

“Uh, yeah, see ya,” Louis replied, waving slowly when Harry saluted him and walked away.

He stared down at the sweatshirt for a while, until he couldn’t see Harry’s too-big shoes anymore, then turned around and looked up. And immediately wishing he hadn’t done so.

Zayn was gaping at him, mouth dropped open and eyes impossibly wide, Niall’s expression mimicking the sentiment though less dramatically.

He quickly realized how all of that must’ve looked and god damn it, he didn’t have time to explain himself to Zayn, he had problems of his own.

Like how Harry had his hair slicked back so much it was shiny and how his glasses still didn’t fit and were too huge and he was wearing a black and white checkered bow tie with his horrible bright green sweater vest and all he could think about were those eyes and how that hideous sweater brought out the color in their green irises and the cute dimple that popped out when he smiled at Louis and how big his hands looked waving goodbye and he wasn’t sure how it was possible but Louis had that same bubbly feeling from the night before in his stomach when Harry was in his “hot guy disguise.”

And he really did need to evaluate this but Zayn was already screeching with questions from across the table.

“What the fuck was that?!” he crowed, arms flailing wildly between where Harry had been then the hoodie in Louis’s hands to Louis himself.

“He was just giving me back my sweater, please unclench your butt cheeks, Malik,” he said, putting the hoodie away in his bag.

“No, but like, ‘didn’t get to give it to you before he drove you home’?! ‘He washed it for you’?!” Zayn cried and honestly, this was a huge overreaction for a conversation about how he got home and his laundry.

“Would you like me to translate that into modern English?” Louis snarked. “He drove me home. And he washed my hoodie. Following me?”

Niall sniggered before noticing Zayn’s face was still very distraught. “Oh, relax, Z, it’s not that weird, right?”

“Of course it’s not,” Louis agreed.

“They’re both two good guys, why’s it such a big deal if they go out?” Niall reasoned.

“Exactly, it’s no big- EXCUSE ME?!” Louis suddenly shrieked, fully realizing what Niall was suggesting and finding it absolutely appalling.

“What?” Niall asked, jumping a little at the outburst. “Isn’t that what’s going on?”

“Absolutely not!” Louis squawked. “Harry and I are not dating! Where would you even-?!”

“Well, you went over his house and he drove you home and you left your hoodie there, so…?” Niall said, face turning extremely red as the blood rushed to his pale skin and Louis scoffed.

“We were studying!” he snapped. “We went to his house to study because some jerks threw a bunch of pasta sauce on him and he wanted to take a shower and not stink up the library!”

“That’s awful!” Niall gasped but Zayn just shook his head.

“But then why did he have to wash your sweatshirt?” he said accusingly, jabbing a finger at Louis.

“He was going to get his car all messy, so I gave it to him to sit on!” Louis said, feeling very much like he was in an interrogation for utterly no reason.

Zayn sat there for a few moments and Louis waited for him to realize that he had no other holes to poke in his story.

“Look, if just going over someone’s house means they’re dating, then the two of you would have been going out for forever!” he said and Zayn’s eyes snapped over to him, wide and nervous. Oops.

“Well, it was a little more suspicious than that, but okay,” Niall said, shrugging and just like that he was on to the next topic.

But Zayn’s eyes were still looked on Louis and if he were one for a cliche, he’d do the whole “I’m watching you” gesture.

But Louis didn’t really have the time or energy to deal with him right now. He had bigger things on his mind.

~ ~ ~

By the time he walked into history class, he was all but convinced that he wouldn’t so much as look at Harry for the rest of the day or the next day or next week and so on until this all blew over. It was probably just the initial shock of discovering that Harry was in fact a hot guy that made him feel this way, added onto that the fact that he was the only one he knew that he was in fact a hot guy. And he was going to keep it that way.

Mostly because he didn’t want to put it out to the general public that he thought Harry was hot, because the way high school worked, half the student body would think they were engaged by the end of the day. Besides that, he could accept that Harry was a hot guy, there were a lot of hot guys on the planet, he was just another one of them. No need to get himself in a tizzy over it.

But he knew that he inevitably would until the rest of his body had learned to accept that fact, so the smartest thing to do would be to distance himself as needed.

“Okay, class, today is a research day, so get with your partners and then let’s head to the library.”

Shit.

And before he could even begin to panic, Harry was already by his side, flashing him that smile.

“Hey there, partner,” he said, following everyone else out of the classroom and down the hall. Louis forced a smile up at him, hoping his pounding heart wasn’t audible to those cute, little ears that had been hidden by his wild hair yesterday - wow, what the fuck was wrong with him?

“Hey,” he replied, but what almost instantly cut off by a shrill, mocking voice from behind them.

“Wow, isn’t this just the cutest?” the voice sneered and Louis turned around to find some of the kids from their class smirking at them tauntingly. “Two of the class freaks bonding over their weirdness.”

Louis scoffed and rolled his eyes, chancing a glance up at Harry, who almost didn’t seem to have heard them.

“Hey, Tomlinson, I saw Styles giving you back a jumper or something at lunch,” one of the guys jeered. “Did you leave it at his house after you fucked him?”

“Wow, Jay, the way you say that, it’s almost as if you think that’s any of your business,” Louis replied, not even turning around and he heard them snickering behind his back.

“I think you got it backwards, mate,” another one of the guys said. “Tomlinson’s definitely a bottom bitch.”

Louis clenched his fist at his side, trying his very hardest not to retaliate. Harry didn’t seem bothered at all (though he sort of stiffened after the last taunt) and he wanted to try out Harry’s method. Being happy despite other people trying to make you miserable. But so far, he was having a lot of trouble, because he wasn’t happy. He wasn’t happy at all.

“How is Styles, huh, Tomlinson?” the first guy asked him. “Probably not that good, but he’s all you can get.”

“I bet he cried,” the other one guffawed and the whole group burst into laughter. “Is that what happened, Tomlinson? Did Styles cry?”

Louis glanced up quickly, noticing how Harry’s cheeks had gone almost purple with embarrassment, and he’d had it, he stomped and spun on his heel, staring down the group of his classmates angrily. “Since we’re going to talk like cavemen, McGuinness, I feel as though I must ask you why you’re so invested in my sex life. If you need a crash course of how it works, I suggest you consult your internet history.” There were a few scoffs (some sounded rather impressed) from the group and the boys all stood there glaring at them. “Now, I must ask you to stop bothering my partner and me, because we’re in the library and maybe want to fill the space between our ears with something other than hot air and porn.”

With that, he turned and promptly stalked off, hoping Harry was close behind. When he got to a table, he dropped all his books down, relieved to have found Harry doing the same. The younger of the two was looking down at him, face expressionless, but not in a negative way. He actually seemed rather curious, waiting to be educated.

Louis met his gaze and sighed.

“That wasn’t good, was it?” he asked, smiling ruefully up at him and Harry finally cracked a smile, shrugging.

“It’s not how I would’ve done it,” Harry said.

“Because you’re Jesus,” Louis reminded him and the taller boy snorted.

“But, since it was the first time anybody’s ever stood up for me, I supposed beggars can’t be choosers,” he said, beaming down at Louis. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” Louis said, waving him off. “Just because you aren’t going to fight back because you’re too nice, doesn’t mean I won’t.” Harry laughed, the laugh that was too high and too loud for his soft, slow voice, but his eyes scrunched up behind his glasses and his smile was huge and it kinda didn’t matter.

“Also,” Louis continued. “You’ll be glad to know that someone ran into me earlier today and I didn’t use my scary punk look to make them wet themselves.”

Harry smiled, looking genuinely impressed and kinda proud and Louis thought ludicrously that he’d quite like to see that look directed at him again.

“Well done! See, isn’t it gratifying?” Harry asked and Louis smirked.

“I’m sure I’ll be glad I did it later. Right now, I’m feeling power withdrawal from not showing that kid who’s the boss around here,” he said and Harry smiled down at his papers.

“There’s always a sacrifice when you put people down,” Harry said sagely. “You scare the knickers off of a freshman, you lose the chance to show that you’re not scary. But being nice? Well, it costs nothing to be nice.”

~ ~ ~

Louis lay back on his bed, staring up at the ceiling, The Black Keys playing softly from the speaker by his bed. As the last song ended and a new one began, he reached over and grabbed his phone, thumbing a message on the screen.

Are you sure you’re not Jesus?

He waited for the reply, imagining Harry smirking to himself as he answered.

Last time I checked, I wasn’t. Can’t hurt to double check, though.

 

Why not head over to the Thames and try walking across it? I hear that’s always a good measure of Christ-ness

 

Okay, and I assume you’ll be there to fish me out when I immediately sink and start drowning?

You seem to have this preconceived notion that I’m not human.

 

I’ve never seen someone with the ability to brush things off like you do.

 

And my ability to let things roll off my back puts me next to Godliness?

 

Jesus-ness, Curly, not Godliness. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

 

Quite right. Anyway, I want you to throw out the notion that I’m not a person. I’m a human, just like you.

Louis stared at his phone, wondering if Harry knew that he had always unconsciously considered Harry and people like him nonhuman. He guessed it was the behaviors and demeanors completely unlike anybody else, the clothes and glasses and mannerisms and colloquialisms and veritable fascination with knowledge and anything and everything that no one else cared about. Unfortunately for them, when he had considered them nonhuman, he hadn’t thought of them as divine. Not at all. In fact, he had thought of them as lesser.

And he was not proud of that.

His phone vibrated with another message.

By the way, I thought we weren’t to text each other about anything other than the project?

He knew Harry was poking fun at him, at the way he’d treated him when they first met, at the way he’d treated Harry like he wasn’t on the same tier as him. And he kind of deserved that, but he was glad that Harry had been there to teach him better. Or at least guide him in the right direction.

Those were the terms I, Louis Tomlinson, set and I have the right to change them as I see fit.

 

And you see fit?

 

The fittest.

And okay, he could’ve probably worded that better, for his own sanity, but too late now.

Is the great Louis Tomlinson acting granting me permission to be his friend? I am truly humbled.

 

You should be. I’m pretty awesome.

 

I’ll take your word for it.

But yeah, seriously, get rid of that idea that I’m not human. Despite my four nipples, I am completely, 100% humanoid.

And of course Harry would bring him back to reality by using the word “humanoid,” but it was all the same, he was sort of glad to put Harry as an equal, maybe it would teach him to do the same with everyone else - wait.

You have FOUR NIPPLES?!

…

Damn it.

~ ~ ~

And after that, it becomes a semi-constant stream of texts between the two of them. It’s not obsessive or crazy, they’re not up until three in the morning messaging one another, but it’s enough that Zayn asks when they’re hanging out, because he knows it’s not him, and his mother asks if it’s Zayn and is surprised that it’s not (and honestly, that’s kind of rude, he’s allowed to have a friend other than Zayn, he just never has before.

It’ll be stupid things too, like Harry will text him a random fact about something, like “Did you know a flamingo can only eat when it’s head is upside-down?” or “Did you know koalas have two sets of genitalia?”

That had been an interesting conversation starter.

WHAT THE FUCK

Wait you mean one of each or…?

No male koalas have two willies and female koalas have two… girly bits

WHAT ON EARTH FOR

I don’t know? Koala things, I’m guessing.

But can they like… USE them all at the same time?

Louis

No like if executed correctly koalas could create an never-ending chain of koala procreation

A literal circle of life

I don’t know why you think you’re not smart you may have just figured out how to keep the koala bear from going extinct

Well there goes my annual good deed. A pity I was planning on solving world hunger this year

There’s always next year

And it was just really nice with Harry. Not that he didn’t love Zayn with every fiber in his being, but it was nice to have another person to text besides him, especially since he knew Zayn already had Niall to text aside from Louis. It was just evening the playing field. (Plus, he needed someone to talk about how stupidly in love Zayn was with Niall and how he should probably grow a pair and actually ask him out instead of wallowing in self-pity every hour of the day and he couldn’t very well have that conversation with Zayn himself.)

Of course, texting was sort of his loophole in the Harry system. He wanted to get to know him better, try to pick his brain and figure out how he was so smart for such a young age, not even academically, he just seemed to know how the world worked and how to live happily in it while still being the person he wanted to be and Louis desperately wanted to know how he’d figured it out and how to do the same. Unfortunately, he couldn’t learn what Harry had to teach and hear what he had to say when he had that face.

The face that had the glasses and slicked back hair but still made him weak in the knees and honestly, that was the most unsettling part of all of this.

That Harry dressed and looked exactly the same as he did when he went to school before Louis had seen him with his hair down and all that, but yet he didn’t look the same. Well, obviously he did look the same, more like the feeling Louis got when he looked at him was different.

Before he’d felt nothing at all, he didn’t feel negatively about Harry when he saw him, but there had been as absence of something that he wasn’t aware of until now.

He’d look at Harry and he’d see those gelled locks and he kinda wanted to run his fingers through them until the gel hold broke free and the curls started to show again. He wanted to hear the satisfying crack of the soft, curly hair breaking free under his touch and feel the strands start to loosen and become pliable again.

He’d see those glasses and he thought about how he kinda wanted to make them fog up. He wanted to get Harry all hot and bothered, he wanted him to flush so deep because of him that the heat would steam up the lenses.

He thought of the dark tattoos hiding under those clothes and how he’d kind of like to pull that sweater vest over his head and then slowly unbutton his pressed, white shirt to expose the chest piece underneath.

He saw Harry in all of his awkwardness, limbs too long and too big for his clothes and hair so mercilessly gelled that no one would be able to tell the sheer volume and amount of hair that was underneath it and glasses so thick and gaudy they distracted from the sparkling green eyes underneath, and he thought that he was cute. Adorable, even, maybe even hot, if his thoughts traveled along the same vein as ripping his shirt open and fogging up his glasses.

He was like that geeky office girls in movies who would take off her glasses and shake out her hair in slow motion and suddenly she was gorgeous and everybody wanted her. Except only Louis knew about him. And he definitely didn’t want him, but he definitely didn’t not want him.

Somehow, his ridiculous, teenaged hormonal mind had transformed something completely unappealing into a whole new plane of untouched opportunities. Harry was uncharted territory, a treasure trove of previously unthought of possibilities and that sort of drove Louis crazy.

So, yeah, forgive him if he was a little distracted when face to face with the boy himself.

Luckily, through texting, Louis was able to actually converse and interact with Harry and enjoy his wit and unlikely charm without falling victim to those eyes and cheekbones and that perfect, straight, white, lazy smile. Because quite honestly, the second his eyes fell on all of those features, he may as well have cotton in his ears.

Not that he wasn’t improving with corporeal contact with the younger boy, he was slowly developing a tolerance for those boyish good looks and could more or less focus on the task at hand if he kept his head down and nose to the grindstone.

Which was even harder than usual now.

They had a nice little system (well, not “they” particularly, just Louis and Harry was obliviously going along with it) going for them for about a week and Louis found it quite enjoyable when he was over the initial stress of having to not have a breakdown in front of Harry. Harry was really fun to be around and he seemed to enjoy Louis’s company, so it was a rather pleasant arrangement.

Of course, for people like Louis, nothing could be pleasant or quiet or just plain docile for too long. That would be too easy.

~ ~ ~

Louis knew Zayn was up to no good when he walked up to their lunch table the next Tuesday and he could see the back of Harry’s heavily gelled head among the dark quiff and blonde hair that had now become somewhat of a regular at their table. Just Harry being there in itself wasn’t enough to incriminate Zayn, but the cruel smirk that overtook his face the second he noticed Louis’s approach sure as hell did.

“Hey, Lou!” he said loudly enough to interrupt whatever conversation Niall and Harry had been having and waving at him like a giant five-year-old. He scowled at him until Harry turned around and smiled at him, waving as well. He fixed his mouth into a smile and waved back, ignoring Zayn’s smug look as he did so.

When he finally got to the table, Niall was smiling at him sort of awkwardly and it occurred to him that he was probably dragged into this scheme, whatever it was, and was feeling sort of guilty about it.

“I found Harry here sitting in the library eating lunch by himself,” Zayn said, gesturing to the boy, who colored considerably. “I thought ‘that’s not right at all!’ So I invited him to eat here with us. Hope you don’t mind!” His sinister look dropped a little when Louis’s did.

“You eat by yourself?” he asked, turning to Harry, who shrugged a little.

“I mean, I’m not really alone. The librarians are there and-”

“You should’ve told me!” Louis said, interrupting him. “You could’ve just come and sat with us this whole time!”

“Well, I didn’t really think of it, I’ve been doing that the past two years so…” he trailed off and Louis frowned deeply. He felt incredibly guilty, even though he hadn’t known Harry had been all alone when he ate lunch, he wished he had. Come to think of it, he’d never once seen Harry in the lunch line or anything; the first time he’d even seen Harry in the cafeteria was when he returned his hoodie to him.

“Well, you’re sitting here from now on,” Louis said firmly and Harry blanched.

“Oh, no, I don’t want to put you out or, like, intrude or any-”

“No, you won’t be,” Louis said. “Niall is a walking ray of sunshine and he loves everything.”

“I do,” Niall confirmed. “Except Vegemite. Nasty stuff, that.”

“And if Zayn has an issue with you, you can just replace him at the table. But I don’t think he’d have an issue, seeing as he invited you here today. Isn’t that right, Zayners?” he said, turning to the darker boy who was staring back at him, unwavering.

“Not a problem at all,” he said.

“Wow… thank you,” the curly-haired boy said, smiling gratefully in an almost disarming way, like Zayn had just offered to give him a life-saving kidney, and Zayn faltered a little.

“Uh… no problem, mate,” he replied and Louis smirked to himself. Everyone was going to have to encounter that painfully indebted smile one way or another. He set about unpacking his food when his phone buzzed in his bag. He looked up at Zayn, stink eye at maximum power, but the other held his gaze. With a sigh, he reached into his bag pocket and pulled out his phone.

I’m going to get to the bottom of this, Tomlinson

Bottom of what?

This thing with you and Styles.

What, you mean friendship? That thing you’re going to lose if you don’t stop acting like an idiot and sticking your nose in places it doesn’t belong?

You wouldn’t leave me. Who else would provide for the kids?

Now stop changing the subject. There’s something more than “just friends” happening here.

I don’t need a man in my life to support my children, good sir.

And on what grounds do you suspect that?

__ <b<_ _

I know that it’s not your mum that you’ve been texting nonstop when we hang out. You wouldn’t smile like an idiot if it was mummy asking if you need your gitch washed.

Maybe I am heavily enamored with the idea of clean laundry.

Louis paused for a second, looking up at Zayn, but the other’s eyes were still cast towards his phone.

I do not smile like an idiot.

You do so. I wish you could see yourself. You look like a complete loon.

Oh you mean how you look when Niall texts YOU?

That’s exactly my point! I LOVE Niall, of course I would smile at his texts! And you smile the exact same way when Harry texts you.

Maybe it’s not Harry who-

He stopped himself short, staring up at Zayn, whose eyes were still down but suddenly wide with panic, mocha skin coloring in the cheeks.

Dude what

Can we please discuss this another time, this interrogation is about you, not me.

You need to tell him

I know! And I’m going to! Like soon okay but right now can we please get back to incriminating you

Okay. Fine. But we’re GOING to talk about this.

As I was saying maybe I’m not even texting Harry. Maybe I’ve found another man

He had been seconds away from typing up something about having an illicit affair with Niall, but he felt like this might not be the time.

You wouldn’t be able to go three seconds without telling me if you found a new guy.

Just because you fell over yourself to tell ME about Niall when you first saw him doesn’t mean I would do that

Yes it does

Okay fine so what’s your point? I like Harry’s texts, it doesn’t mean that

“Who are you texting over there?” Harry suddenly asked, leaning over his shoulder and he squeaked, closing his messages immediately and hiding his phone from view.

“Nothing! What? Me mum,” he yelped, turning to Harry, who raised an eyebrow at him but apparently decided not to investigate too much into it.

“And am I meant to believe you were texting your mam, too?” Niall asked Zayn smirkingly, crossing his arms over his chest.

“You’re meant to,” Zayn replied. “Whether or not you do is your choice.” Niall snorted and shook his head before turning back to continue his conversation with Harry, the two of them smirking at the other two.

Zayn and Louis glanced at each other briefly.

This isn’t over.

I’d be disappointed if it was.

They pocketed their phones after that and joined in on the conversation until a little while before the bell rang.

“Hey, Louis, didn’t you tell me that The Rogue booked a gig this Friday?” Zayn suddenly asked, voice dripping with faux innocence and cluelessness, and Louis eyed him wearily. Of course he’d told him that, he’d called him up two nights before and squealed at him at how this was their first show in a while and it was going to be great and Zayn had squealed right along with him.

“Yeah,” he answered cautiously and the other grinned.

“Harry, why don’t you tag along?” he asked, turning to the boy himself and Louis nearly choked on his cookie.

“Me? Really?” he asked.

“I don’t see why not,” Zayn said, shrugging. “I’m bringing Niall.”

“You are?” Louis and Niall asked at the same time and Zayn blushed, immediately turning to Niall.

“Er, well, I was hoping to,” he said and Niall smiled hugely.

“I’d love to go!” he exclaimed and Louis watched as Zayn’s face became the visual definition of “warm and fuzzy inside.” He kind of just sat there for a while, grinning stupidly and Louis and Harry looked to each other before snapping him out of it.

“Zayn?” Louis called. “Weren’t you doing something? Inviting Harry somewhere?” Ruining my life?

“O-Oh, yeah,” he said, coming - no, more floating back down to Earth. “So, yeah, I’m sure Louis would love to have another fan to come and hear him.”

Louis would love another fan. He just didn’t want to lose him the second he got him.

“Yeah, I’ve been trying to get Louis to tell me when his next show is. I would love to come,” Harry started. “But, like, as long as Louis’s okay with it.”

“No, no, I’m fine! It’ll be really cool,” Louis said. “But, like, I’m not really sure it’s your… scene.”

“This won’t be your everyday Sci-Fi convention, Stretch,” Zayn said. “Think you can handle it?”

And Louis was actually about to kick Zayn so hard that he’d taste his liver, because rude, but Harry just smiled.

“I think I’ll be fine,” he said, smiling.

Just then, the bell rang and the four of them stood up and made their way towards the door. When Harry wasn’t looking, Louis reached into his bag and grabbed his phone, tapping a furious message out and sending it.

I HATE YOU SO MUCH RIGHT NOW

What? It’ll be fun!

FUN?!

But before Zayn could even reply, Niall was by his side, asking him something that sounded like “Do you really want me to come to the show with you?” and he’d completely lost his attention.

THIS. ISN’T. OVER.

I’d be disappointed if it was.

~ ~ ~

It wasn’t that he didn’t want Harry at his show. It wasn’t Harry he had a problem with, it was his… audience.

The shows his band put on were usually at old, empty warehouses turned underground clubs or music bars. They were almost always filled to the brim with punks, hipsters, emos, junkies, stoners, and they reeked of marijuana, body spray, and teenage angst. Not exactly welcoming to someone like Harry.

They’d take one look at him and either tear him apart or worse, criticize his taste in music. Harry would probably take one look at them and turn tail and run away and never speak to Louis again. Which, for some reason, would suck a lot.

For a group of people that were tired of being judged, they sure were judgmental. He’d learned better by now.

He grabbed his phone out of his bag and tapped out another message to Zayn.

Can we please talk about the monumental mistake you’ve made today?

He sent the message, stared at it for a minute, then sighed, typing out another.

Actually, can we call a truce on our Harry dispute and talk about something else?

By something else, do you mean Niall?

Not just Niall. You AND Niall.

I don’t think I like this truce

Come on, Z, this is kinda more important than you probably causing a rift in the universe by inviting Harry Styles to an amateur punk rock concert

Probably.

What scientific evidence do you have to prove that I’ve done such a thing

Einstein’s Theory of Kiss My Ass. Now shut up about that and get talking about the crucial stuff. Sing, little birdie.

You’re a twat.

And yeah, okay, so.

Niall.

Niall.

I like. Kinda wanna marry him? Like, not right now obviously but

Heavy. Do you know if he wants to marry you back? Not right now obviously but

I have absolutely no idea with this kid. Like, you’ve seen him he’s the worst liar ever about anything

Which is why I’m wondering why you included him in your cockamamie plan with Harry today. My guess is it had something to do with him being cute

He caught me spying on Harry in the library and asked what I was doing and wanted to help and.

He’s just so cute, Lou.

I know, man. I know.

But you kinda don’t?

Like if he looked at me with that face and told me to commit arson I probably would. Because I would make him happy.

Not that I think arson would make him happy. Because he’s like super nice all the time and it makes me want to cry

I just wanna make him happy all the time

That sounds like a really good way to tell him you like him

But what if he doesn’t want to be happy?

Pardon?

No like what if he doesn’t want ME to make him happy? What if he wants someone else or like isn’t interested in my type of happiness

I don’t think your type of happiness would be any different than any other

Louis please be serious. I want to go to school for art and I drive a motorcycle and I smoke like three packs a week and I’ve worn the same leather jacket since I was in eleventh year. My type of happiness isn’t what he wants

Hey, you love that jacket! I know because I told you to get rid of it once and you wouldn’t talk to me for the whole weekend. And what’s wrong with going to school for art? You’re an amazing artist and if he could only see the sketchbooks of pictures of him, he’d probably jump onto you and never let go. Also, he thinks your motorcycle’s awesome!

How do you know that?

Who doesn’t love motorcycles?

Louis I’m being serious here!

So am I!

No you’re not! I seriously want everything with this boy that I can’t have and you’re making it a joke!

Who says you can’t have him? Why?

I just told you why!

That’s YOU telling me the reasons that you think he wouldn’t want you for. Did he ever tell you that these things are not attractive to him?

Well no. Well, just the smoking but

And you’ve cut back.

But still. I’m not an idiot, I know what people think about artists and how they’re not going to get anywhere and they’re all going to bums on the street. Who would want to date that?

Zayn, with all due respect please shut the fuck up. Like seriously you KNOW that you’re going to be someone with your art. You know that you’re going to be up in a gallery and I will take time out of my tour just to come and see you. And when I come see you, Niall will be right there with you, smiling all big and proud and shit and you’re going to be so fucking happy it’s unreal

But none of that is gonna happen if you just sit on your ass and do nothing about it

But what if he doesn’t like me back?

Then you find someone else to make you so fucking happy it’s unreal

But to be totally honest, I think Niall does like you back.

Why do you think that?

He was blowing sunshine out of his cheekbones and eyeballs when you asked him to the show today. And he sits with us at lunch even though he has a lot of other friends and he’s just really smiley when you’re around

Also he was playing footsie with me under the table. I mean he was AIMING for you, but got me. I didn’t have the heart to tell the poor lad it wasn’t you

WHAT

How do you know it wasn’t meant for you?

Oh, for Christ’s sake, will you quit the pity act? I know because he kept looking over at you all hopeful and then looked sad when you didn’t respond. Probably thought you weren’t interested in his footsie

But I am interested in his footsie! I wanna play footsie with him every day of my life!

THEN TELL HIM THAT YOU INSUFFERABLE OAF

Okay. Okay, I will. Not today though. Tomorrow

Tomorrow?

Yeah, tomorrow. We’re studying at my place, so it’ll be good, right? And if he rejects me, my mum just bought a new carton of ice cream for me to eat and cry into so

That’s the spirit.

I know he’s going to say yes, mate. You deserve him.

No, I don’t deserve him at ALL.

But… given time… maybe I could.

Louis smiled at his phone and put it at his side. He was just starting to doze off when it vibrated again.

I’m kinda like all giddy and jittery and fuzzy inside right now so I’m going to like… maybe run a 5k or something. But don’t think you’re getting out of that talk, Tomlinson. I will find out your secret.

Look forward to it, mate. Say, when you find out my secret, tell me what it is, eh? Because I haven’t got a clue.

With that, he put his phone on his nightstand and rolled over, trying to pretend he was completely truthful just then.

~ ~ ~

The next day, during lunch, Louis glanced up just for a tick from his discussion with Harry about whether or not their chemistry teacher’s hair piece was real or just roadkill he’d found on the side of the road, just in time to see Zayn shift a little bit as he bit into his apple.

Almost instantly, Niall jumped, looking over at Zayn like he couldn’t quite believe what he thought had happened. Zayn kept his eyes turned away but Louis could see him move, just the littlest bit, again, and again, Niall started. After a moment, the other lad smiled, cheeks flushing pleasantly, and Louis felt his foot move under the table again, this time just grazing past him and then disappearing elsewhere.

Zayn, very poorly, tried to hide his grin.

Louis smiled to himself and turned back to his conversation, leaving the two of them to themselves.

~ ~ ~

I can’t do this

Yes you can Zayn, it’s very simple.

“Niall, I love you to bits and want to play footsie with you and suck your cock every day until I die. Please be my forever girl”

Louis I am hiding in the bathroom and pretty soon he’s going to get suspicious. Please be serious

Zayn really, it’s going to be fine. Just tell him. He played footsie with you during lunch and if he looked any happier, I’d think you were fingering him.

You weren’t fingering him were you?

LOUIS

All right, all right. Look, he was obviously happy that you were flirting with him. Seal the deal. Kiss him, snog him, wax poetic about him, whatever, just DO IT

“Did he do it yet?” Harry asked from across the room, having folded himself up into a ball and spinning himself repeatedly in Louis’s desk chair (he wasn’t even going to try and tell himself that wasn’t adorable.) The two had agreed the library was stuffy and boring and had decided to take their meetings to their houses. Admittedly, neither of them were getting much done today, but they were a little ahead of schedule (somehow) so this was well-deserved.

“No, he’s having a mental breakdown,” Louis replied. It wasn’t his fault Harry was in on it. All he’d done was tell him that Zayn had a crush on Niall and that he was planning on doing something about it today and Harry had asked him to give him a play-by-play of what happened. Couldn’t be avoided.

“Tell him to talk about his eyes,” Harry said, not caring in the least when his glasses flew off as he spun.

“Aren’t you going to get those?” Louis asked, typing another message.

“I do what I want,” Harry replied and well, that was that.

Harry says tell him about his eyes

HARRY’S THERE

Of course he’s here, it’s our work day

WHY DOES HARRY KNOW ABOUT MY THING WITH NIALL TODAY

I told him

YOU WHAT

Look this isn’t productive, pretty soon Niall’s going to think you’re whacking it in there so come up with a plan

He’s not making a lot of noise

JESUS CHRISTMAS WHAT IF HE LEFT

Zayn why would he leave

“Why would he leave?” Harry repeated from next to him, who decided to roll his chair over next to Louis’s bed and lean over his shoulder to read the texts.

“Zayn’s an idiot sometimes,” Louis sighed.

MAYBE HARRY TOLD HIM THAT I WAS PLANNING ON TELLING HIM I LIKED HIM AND THIS IS HOW HE’S REJECTING ME

Louis turned to Harry, who shook his head.

Harry didn’t tell him, mate

Harry took the phone from his grasp.

This is Harry. I didn’t tell him, mate

Louis again. Now get out of that bathroom and kiss his face or something

“Good plan,” Harry said. “You should be a match-maker.”

“Gee, thanks, man,” Louis said, turning to Harry and stopping dead in his tracks when he saw Harry’s uninterrupted green eyes smiling down at him.

“You okay?”

“U-Um, yeah, I-”

Suddenly, several texts started coming in in quick succession and the two of them jumped.

“What’s happening?” Harry asked.

Louis looked down at the messages, grunting when he couldn’t read the earlier messages because new ones kept coming in. They finally stopped and he sighed.

“Finally,” he said before he scrolled up and started reading.

I can’t just

Hang on, I’m opening the door a crack

He’s still here!

Wait he’s looking at

SHIT OHY MGAD NO

LOUIS HE’S LOOKING AT ONE OF MY SKETCHBOOKS

IT’S A NIALL ONE OGMYGOD HE’S LOOKING AT MY DRAWINGS OF HIM

HE’S GOING TO THINK I’M A TOTAL FREAK AND HE’S GOING TO HAVE ME ARRESTED SHIT

FUCK SHIT NO HE SAW ME LOOKING OUT THE DOOR WHAT DO I DO

HE’S COMING OVER HERE SHIT NO

SFJKL SFE

“Shit,” Louis said, running a hand through his now-green hair.

“What do you think happened?” Harry asked, who had somehow now made the transfer onto the bed next to Louis without him noticing but whatever.

“I don’t know,” Louis said.

“Do you think he killed him?”

“What, cute, little, innocent Niall?” he asked. “Maybe.”

“Well, either way, Zayn will have his answer,” Harry said. “I hope it works out, though. Those two would be really sweet together.”

“Yeah, they would be,” Louis agreed.

The two finally decided to buckle down and work a little on their project, emphasis on “little,” as they stopped every minute or so for a new text from Zayn, which they didn’t receive.

In fact, Louis didn’t receive a new text until Harry had already left.

OH MY GOD

WHAT

Once he’d finished that text, he opened a new one for Harry.

Zayn just texted back

Really? What did he say?

Just then, his phone buzzed from Zayn.

NIALL was all he sent, along with an assortment of several happy and lovestruck emoticons and hearts of various colors.

It’s good news is what he sent to Harry, just to keep him in the loop.

What happened? he messaged to Zayn.

NIALL IS THE BEST KISSER EVER

LIKE

EVER IN THE UNIVERSE

EVER

OH MY GOD

LOUIS HE’S SO AMAZING

I JUST

LIKE I CAN’T EVEN FEEL MY TOES

WHAT HAPPENED

HE KISSED ME

Yes I realize that but how did it come about

OKAY SO LIKE I SAW HIM LOOKING THROUGH MY SKETCHBOOK OF PICTURES OF HIM RIGHT

Yes

AND THEN HE SAW ME SEEING HIM LOOKING THROUGH MY SKETCHBOOK OF PICTURES OF HIM

Correct

SO HE STARTED WALKING OVER TO ME AND I WAS LIKE HOLY SHIT HE’S GONNA KICK ME OUT OF MY OWN HOUSE OR HE’S GONNA SLAP ME OR REJECT ME WOW THIS SUCKS

But

BUT HE DIDN’T HE JUST OPENED THE DOOR AND KINDA STARED AT ME SITTING DOWN ON THE FLOOR AND HE TOLD ME TO GET UP AND I DID AND HE TOOK MY HAND AND LED ME OVER TO MY BED

LOU HE HELD MY HAND

You can turn off caps lock any minute now

I CANNOT

I WILL NOT

Fine just get on with it

SO HE PULLED ME OVER AND WE SAT DOWN AND HE WAS LIKE zayn can we talk about those pictures? AND I WAS LIKE I’d really rather not AND THEN HE GAVE ME THIS REALLY ADORABLE PUPPY DOG LOOK SO I JUST SAID fine

AND HE SAID THAT MY PICTURES WERE AMAZING ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL AND HE WAS LIKE those are of me aren’t they AND I WAS JUST LIKE yeah they are AND THEN HIS EYES STARTED GETTING ALL TEARY AND I WAS FREAKING OUT LIKE FUCK I MADE HIM CRY SO I STARTED APOLOGIZING A LOT

(At this point, Louis decided to stop replying and let him finish the story out.)

BUT HE WAS LIKE no don’t be sorry i just can’t believe you see me that way those pictures make you look beautiful AND I SAID well ni you ARE beautiful to me

AND HE JUST KINDA STARED AT ME FOR A FEW SECONDS AND THEN HE GRABBED MY FACE AND KISSED ME HE FUCKING KISSED ME I’M SO EXCITED I’M HAVING AN ASTHMA ATTACK

You don’t have ashtma

NIALL GAVE ME ASTHMA

I’m really, really happy for you, Z. So are you like together now?

I think so? Why wouldn’t we be?

FUCK WHY WOULDN’T WE BE?

Zayn shut up please. You two are together.

How do you know?

There was a pause for a long time and for a second Louis was worried maybe Zayn really did have some sort of anxiety attack but then he replied again.

So we’re together

Duh. I just told you that.

What made you change your mind?

He just texted me.

He was like so we’re together right? like for real together? and i was like yeah of course and he was like good because as your boyfriend i claim full rights to those picTURES YOU DREW OF ME OH MY GOD HE’S SO CUTE

AND HE’S MY BOYFRIEND

NIALL’S MY CUTE BOYFRIEND I CAN’T BREATHE

Calm down Malik Niall’s way too young to be a widow

LOUIS HE’S MY BOYFRIEND

I know and I’m so glad for you. And just know that you don’t need to take him to my show as your first date. If you’d rather do something else, it’s fine

Are you kidding Lou? I love your music and Niall loves music, he wants to study it you know.

Yes you’ve only told me like a million times

Yes well he told me he can’t WAIT to go to your show. so that’s three people super excited to see your show

Thanks mate :)

No problem :)) And Lou

 

Thanks

You’re welcome pal. Love ya

Love you too

~ ~ ~

The next day at school is something like you would expect to happen after the big kiss in a cheesy romance chick-flick; Zayn pulled up to campus on his motorcycle with Niall perched happily on the back, as soon as they were off the bike, Zayn took Niall’s bag and wholly ignored the blonde’s protests that he could carry it himself, though those quieted down the second Zayn took his hand and they started walking into school. Zayn walked Niall to his first class and pressed a kiss to his rosy cheek when they were in front of the door before handing him his bag and then walking off to his own class on the other side of school.

Louis watched him completely and utterly zone out in their first class, chin leaning on his hand and staring blankly at the board at the front, dopey smile on his face the whole time. When the teacher berated him for very obviously not paying attention and not taking notes, Zayn filled the pages of his notebook with Niall’s name written in different calligraphies and surrounded by little hearts. It was nauseating.

 

Lunch was almost unbearable, because the two of them were practically cuddling on their side of the table and every so often one of them would whisper something in the other’s ear and make them giggle and Louis wondered what they could possibly have to giggle over in their less than twelve hours of being in a relationship.

What was even worse was that Harry loved them, Zayn and Niall might as well have been the royal couple to him.

“They’re so cute,” he said for what must’ve been the fifth time as he watched Zayn make a stupid face to make Niall laugh. “Aren’t they so cute?” he asked Louis, pushing his shoulder a little and Louis forced a smile.

“So cute I could die,” he grumbled. Of course he was exaggerating, it was really nice to see Zayn look so happy, he just wished it wasn’t so suddenly, when he didn’t have time to adjust himself. This was the guy who had a tattoo of a skull smoking a questionable-looking cigarette on his shoulder and now he was letting Niall feed him popcorn. It was a lot to take in.

“Well, I think it’s really sweet that their first date is going to be one of your gigs,” Harry said. “Maybe one of your songs will be their song, you know?” He gasped. “What if one of your songs is their wedding song?!”

“Haz, they’ve been dating for a day,” he said. He glanced towards Zayn, who was totally preoccupied with Niall, and leaned in to whisper in Harry’s ear. “And between you and me, Zayn already told me their wedding song was going to be ‘Wake Me Up’ by Ed Sheeran.”

Harry’s face lit up. “I love that song!”

“Well, sorry to ruin it for you by associating it with Bert and Ernie over there,” Louis said, smirking, but Harry shook his head.

“No, that’s brilliant! Now the song’s more meaningful,” he said, smiling widely in that way that made Louis want to open up his chest and let the birds flapping around in there out. “I love that music has that power to join people together. Like, you hear a certain song and if you start to associate it with a person, you always will. And sometimes it’s sad, but songs are like your own key to memories and that’s so cool.”

 

“Yeah, that’s what I want to do with my music someday,” Louis said, not meaning to spill this much but mouth moving anyway. “I want to make people feel and all that shit.”

“I know you can do it, mate,” Harry said, patting his back. “I can’t wait to hear how your music changes the world.”

And Harry was so optimistic but still sounded so sure about it and suddenly Louis felt like he could do that, even if it was for a split-second, it overpowered all the doubts he sometimes and it was liberating and so nice he could almost cry and he never thought his history partner would say something so important to him.

But then again, he never thought his history partner would be someone he’d actually want to be friends with and then become someone very closely resembling a friend.

But things change, he supposed.

~ ~ ~

When he gets home from band practice that day, there’s already a text waiting for him on his phone from Zayn.

Don’t think in all this excitement that I’ve forgotten about you and Styles.

Funny I didn’t think you’d notice anyone else in the world that wasn’t Niall anymore.

I will always notice you because you’re always up to no good

For some reason, Louis was slightly touched by that.

Thanks I think.

No problem. I think.

So anyway, what are you up to with this Styles business anyway?

For God’s sake, Malik, he’s my history partner, what am I doing that’s out of the ordinary?

You’re like jittery around him. Like you have something you don’t want him to know.

And I’m over here thinking.

What could Louis possibly be thinking that he doesn’t want some kid like Harry to find out about?

That he’s funny. That he’s hot. That Louis might want to climb that like a tree.

Zayn I can promise you, I’m not hiding anything from anybody.

You are so. You’re hiding something from me.

Come on, Lou, we promised to tell each other everything.

Ugh, Louis hated when Zayn did this.

Do not guilt trip me, Zayn, we’re not five.

I know, but I always kinda thought like you’d tell me if something was up. You know you can trust me right?

Zayn seriously shut up we’ve been best friends since the dawn of time. Of course I trust you.

Then why won’t you tell me what’s going on?

Yesterday Niall was still in my driveway when I texted you and told you EVERYTHING

Louis frowned. He kinda did need to get it off of his chest, but. He didn’t want to tell people.

It’s not like. A THING. It’s just. It’s nothing.

So there IS a thing.

Zayn.

Why wouldn’t you tell me about the thing?

What’s the thing?

Zayn I just said it’s nothing

You just said there was a thing.

No, I said it’s NOT a thing.

Louis, if there’s a thing with Harry or ANYBODY I want to know about it.

 

So tell me the thing.

It’s like really stupid and you’re not gonna believe me.

Louis of course I’m gonna believe you.

Louis bit his lip, staring at his phone. He knew it wasn’t actually a big deal but when he told Zayn it was going to become a bigger deal than it was.

You’re going to make a big deal out of it.

Promise I won’t!

 

Come on, Louis, I won’t be able to just BE now that I know you’re not telling me something! I’ll probably bother you all the time until you tell me. I’ll call you and text you and come over your house at midnight and bring it up at lunch and stuff, then Harry will start asking too and stuff. So.

All right already, just stop the pitiful act. It’s not a good look for you.

It works every time.

You suck. A lot.

Well, I have a boyfriend now, so that might all go to good use.

Ew. No. Ew gross you’ve killed me with your grossness I can’t tell you the thing now.

Louis tell the thing

Okay fine.

He groaned, considered just not texting him back.

Louis

Tell

The

Thing

Or

I’ll

Ask

Harry

About

It

SHUT UP

Harry doesn’t know about the thing because Harry IS the thing.

What’s wrong with Harry?

There’s nothing WRONG with him, it’s just like.

He’s

Hot.

Beg pardon?

I just said.

Yeah, you did but I don’t understand.

What don’t you understand? I just said he’s hot.

I’m sorry he’s HOT?

Yes, Captain Literacy, you can read, well done

He’s hot.

Yes.

Louis he.

He wears sweater vests

No that’s not the hot part

Clearly

No like okay

We went to his house after he got covered in the pasta sauce

And he wanted to take a shower because like he was covered in pasta sauce

Smart kid.

And he did

Even smarter than I thought

And he came out of the bathroom and like he was hot.

You mean like sweaty? Temperature-wise?

ZAYN PLEASE STOP BEING STUPID HE’S HOT OKAY HE WAS GORGEOUS

WELL EXCUSE ME FOR HAVING A HARD TIME BELIEVING YOU WHEN YOU SAY THE KID WHO WORE A SWEATER WITH A MOOSE ON IT IS HOT OKAY

That sweater was really cute

OH MY GOD

LOUIS WHAT THE FUCK

I DON’T KNOW OKAY HE JUST CAME OUT OF THE SHOWER AND HE WAS REALLY REALLY ATTRACTIVE

Do you mean attractive like a dick thing?

WHAT

ZAYN NO OH MY GOD HE HAD A TOWEL ON

I AM REALLY CONFUSED

HOW DOES NIALL THINK YOU’RE SMART

START MAKING SENSE I UNDERSTAND THINGS WHEN THEY AREN’T GIBBERISH

CAN I JUST CALL YOU THIS IS REALLY FRUSTRATING

PLEASE

Louis huffed as he closed his messages and scrolled to the bottom of his contacts to Zayn. When the other boy picked up, he immediately shrieked into the phone.

“I told you you were going to make a big deal out of it!”

“That’s because it is a big deal!”

“It really isn’t!” Louis snapped.

“Louis, you’re obviously going blind. Look, I’m not saying he’s ugly or some shit because no one’s ugly and I’m sure he turns someone on but come on. The kid wears his hair like it’s a helmet and the sweater vests and-” Zayn said.

“No, Zayn, it’s all a lie! An illusion! Really!” Louis said, almost desperately. Zayn made an unimpressed noise over the phone. “Like, he came out of the shower and- Zayn, he has really curly hair and a lot of it, like you wouldn’t expect that much hair when he wears it down flat like he does.

 

“And he has really pretty green eyes and they’re really big and sparkly and he has tattoos,” he finished. There was silence over the line for a moment.

“Excuse me?” Zayn finally said.

“He has tattoos, Zayn. He has a chest piece that’s two swallows and all these words on his arms and a huge ship,” he said.

“Louis, seriously, Harry is probably scared of his own shadow. How on Earth do you expect me to believe-”

“It’s true!” Louis cried.

“Louis, it’s really okay that you have a crush but don’t lie to me about it,” Zayn said, sounding really annoyed.

 

And Louis was just about to snap back at Zayn because seriously, Louis never had and never would lie to Zayn, how dare he even-

“A WHAT?!” he squawked. “You think I have a what on Harry?”

“Jesus Christ, Lou, do we have to do the theatrics?” Zayn groaned. “You have a crush on Styles. And that’s okay, I do-”

“I do not have a crush on Harry Styles, Zayn!” Louis screeched. “I- Have you seen him?” (But as he said those words, his stomach twisted painfully and he felt something very akin to shame yank at him low in his gut.)

“Yes, but apparently he’s hot, remember?” Zayn replied smoothly and shit, right. He kinda just immediately said what he would have said all those weeks ago when he first met him. “Louis, it’s really okay if you have a crush on him, I don’t judge at all. I just can’t believe you’re so ashamed of it.”

Louis spluttered obnoxiously. “Are you mental?!” he cried. “I’m not ashamed of him! I just literally do not have a crush on him! You can think people are hot and not have a crush on them! I think David Beckham’s gorgeous but I don’t have a crush on him!”

 

“Yes, you do.”

Oh. Right. Bad example.

“Okay, fine, but seriously, I don’t need to have a crush on him to think he’s hot,” Louis said firmly. “He’s just really fit. End of story.”

“Sorry for still having a hard time believing it,” Zayn said noncommittally after a moment and Louis sighed. “Anyway, so what if he’s hot? That doesn’t really explain much.”

“It doesn’t?”

“Well, it might,” Zayn said. “For a while you didn’t even want to be associated with Styles and now that he’s, quote-unquote, ‘hot’, he’s always around.” Louis could see where this was going and he was not at all amused. “Are you only keeping him around because he’s hot?”

“Zayn, are you actually shitting with me right now? Like, seriously. When have I ever shown you proof that I would string someone along because they’re attractive?”

Zayn paused. “Never.”

“Exactly!”

“I’m sorry! I’m just, like, really confused!” Louis could relate. “Like, okay, why do you have him around?”

“Zayn, you’ve been sitting at lunch with him, you know he’s a nice guy,” Louis said.

“Yeah, but most of the time you don’t take the time to figure that out. Also, there’s also a little more criteria to you tolerating someone than being attractive and nice.”

“Well, he’s funny, too, I guess,” Louis said, shrugging. “And, like, really smart. But not just with books and shit. He’s, like, smart about life and how people are and he is really confident in himself even though he doesn’t seem it. Like, he may stutter a lot when you first meet him but he’s just a little shy and when he knows you he opens up a lot.”

Zayn didn’t say anything, so Louis guessed he wanted him to go on.

“And he’s really sweet, like when he got covered in pasta sauce that one day he kept apologizing to me for it and, like, who does that? And he’s kinda dumb in a really endearing way, like, he’ll start singing ‘Barbie Girl’ and he’ll stop in the middle because he doesn’t like how that song ‘perpetuates the dumb blonde stereotype’. Or he’ll tell a stupid joke about giraffes and he’ll laugh himself stupid even though it’s not funny at all. And you know, he’s really cool when you get to know him. Also, he likes the Ramones, so.”

There was a pause on the other end that stretched into nearly a full-minute’s silence.

“Zayn?” Louis called, wondering if the call had dropped.

“I’m here,” he said evenly. “So, can I just clarify something with you?

“You think he’s sweet. And nice. And funny, smart, cool. You think he’s endearing,” Zayn listed off. “And finally, you think he’s hot.”

“Um, yeah, thank you for summarizing everything I just said,” Louis said.

“You are literally the stupidest human being ever,” Zayn said drily and wow, that was sort of uncalled for.

“Well, that’s sort of rude,” Louis said.

“Louis, mate, you have a fucking crush on this kid. Monster one, at that,” he said and Louis blinked.

“Um… no, I don’t?” Louis replied. “I’ve been telling you this for, like, an hour.”

“Louis.”

“He has a lot of good qualities! So what?”

“Lou, if I came to you and said that Niall was hot, smart, funny, endearing, cool, nice, and sweet, what would you tell me?” Zayn asked.

“That it wasn’t anything you hadn’t told me before,” Louis said.

“What if I said this for the first time?” Zayn said.

“Okay, it sort of sounds like a crush,” Louis said. “But it’s not! He’s just fun to be around!”

“Okay, mate, whatever you say,” Zayn said, utterly unconvinced and Louis would be having non of that.

“Don’t you give me that condescending bullshit, Malik,” Louis griped.

“It’s not my fault you’re in denial,” Zayn said.

“Well, all this time you’ve been trying to prove that I’m in denial could’ve been time you could’ve been in Niall,” Louis said. “So who’s the loser here?”

“How long have you been waiting to use that joke?”

“Far too long,” he said. “But seriously, Zayn, don’t make this a thing. I don’t have a crush.”

“I totally believe you,” Zayn said in a way that suggested completely the opposite. “Look, I gotta go, but have fun with your not-crush.”

“I will,” Louis sniffed. “Have fun with your tiny dick.”

He ended the call promptly after that, having had the last word but not at all feeling like he’d won.

Zayn’s stupid, he thought as he trudged down the stairs to join his mother and sisters for dinner.

He doesn’t know what he’s talking about, he thought as he pushed his peas around the plate and hoped his mother wouldn’t notice (she did, she noticed every time he did it in his eighteen years.)

Why would I like Harry? he thought as he helped his sister wash the dishes and ignoring her as she jabbered on about what that one girl tweeted about her.

Just because I think he’s hot, as he sat down with Daisy and watched My Little Pony.

Doesn’t mean a thing, when Phoebe came in and demanded they watch Phineas and Ferb instead (she took more after Louis.)

Anyone would think he’s hot, as he watched the twins wrestle and did nothing to stop them.

And anyone would want to hang with him, when Lottie shooed them all out because Gossip Girl was on.

Because he’s nice, he thought whenhe sat down to do homework and ended up playing FIFA instead.

And funny. (Lost FIFA so he went to play piano.)

And sweet. Like really sweet. (Started with The Fray and ended with a punk rock version of Barbie Girl of his own design.)

And he’s smart, like Nobel Prize smart. (His mother told him to quit that racket and play something nicer so he started the slow, mellow version of Shaggy’s “It Wasn’t Me” they’d made up when they were bored.)

But not cocky about it. He doesn’t make you feel stupid. (Had his piano privileges taken away when Daisy and Phoebe somehow, not through any fault of his own, knew every word.(The twins were Zayn’s favorites.))

He’s a great guy, that doesn’t mean I like him. (Decided to finally sit down and get homework done. Drew a pirate ship instead. He has no idea where he’d seen it before. Definitely not on the arm of some curly-haired guy he knew, no sir.)

Honestly, why kind of barbaric world do we live in where a guy can’t be friends with someone who’s nice… (Went to the kitchen to get ice cream to find they were out.)

And smart… (Driving to a Tesco to buy ice cream at 8:15 at night.)

And sweet… (Paying the cashier and pretending like he hadn’t written “Fuck bitches, get money” on the freezer door in the back when the clerk had given him a dirty look because of his piercings.)

And funny… (Happily digging into his ice cream.)

Who just so happens to be cute without being put under suspicion of canoodling? (Practicing guitar, coincidentally right outside Fizzy’s room, since she’d put a red shirt in the washer and turned all his boxers pink (wearing all black everything else had at least this advantage.)

Like so what that I find him attractive? (Drawling out an insincere apology when his mum yelled at him.)

Like, it’s not that hard to imagine. With his pretty, chocolate curls… (Stripping down to get into the shower.)

And big, green eyes that stare right into my core and make me feel warm like I’m next to a fireplace…. (Shampooing his hair and scowling when the suds going down the drain had a tint of blue in it (he thought he’d washed all the excess out yesterday, his pillow was going to be positively Smurf-like by tomorrow.)

And his cute dimples that only come out when he smiles that stupid, dopey smile and you know that he really enjoys your company… (Drying his hair with Lottie’s hairdryer because if he ruined another towel with his hair dye his mother would shave it off in his sleep.)

And those puffy, soft, pink lips; I mean, they look soft, I wouldn’t know. I bet they are though. They look it and Harry is so sweet like, he definitely has soft lips… (Cleaning his newest piercing, in his eyebrow, with a cotton swab.)

And his ridiculously long torso with all those tattoos that probably have really profound and important stories behind them that I wouldn’t mind listening to in that stupid, pretty, slow voice forever… (Brushing his teeth.)

Honestly, I would listen to that boy read the dictionary. Hell, I listen to him drone on and on about Egypt or some shit all day and it’s awesome… (Plucking away at his guitar because it was still too early to go to bed but he was too tired to do anything else.)

So yeah, he has that all going for him, but it doesn’t mean I have a crush on him. (Crawling under his covers, staring straight up at his ceiling, eyes wide and distressed and stomach churning with distress.)

Shit.

~ ~ ~

When he woke up the next morning from a rather restless night’s sleep, he immediately texted Zayn before his mind could fully recall the realization from the night before.

Okay, so you do still realize that you’re going to be responsible for Harry’s death tonight right?

why r y plsnnin t kil hm?

(Louis had definitely just woken him up and still-half-asleep text speak was abhorrent.)

No, you twit, but you might as well have been, inviting him to this show.

You know what the people who show up to that shit are like! They’ll rip him apart!

No they won’t.

Zayn if he shows up in a SWEATER VEST

Shit okay.

Maybe it won’t be so bad. Like, maybe they’ll think he’s an extreme hipster.

Louis knew Zayn was just grasping at straws desperately, because they both knew that the only thing punks hated more than people judged was people different from them (ironic.) And they hated no one more so than hipsters.

Any other bright ideas?

 

Why did you even invite him?

Because I was trying to figure out why you were being so weird and I thought bringing him to a gig would help me figure it out.

How on earth would that help you figure out anything?

Music helps me think.

Are you fucking kidding me

Only kind of. Anyway, he’s a friend of ours now and he should come to see you play. Also I wanted to see if he could hang.

Zayn.

And since you have a crush on him and all, it would be cool for him to be there? Motivate you to make the show extra good

Louis couldn’t really find it in himself to deny anything right now.

Oh my god.

Zayn.

 

ZAYN.

Okay relax! We’ll figure something out!

Why don’t you just ask him to wear his hot guy disguise? That’ll get the others off his back, there’s nothing outcasts love more than pretty things. Also, I want to see this for myself.

Louis thought about this. That could work. If Harry showed up looking as scrumptious as he had when he’d come out of the shower that day, there was no doubt that they would leave him be.

No. No I can’t

Are you serious

No, Zayn, he’s most comfortable in his… normal clothes, I don’t want him to be uncomfortable

He’s gonna be uncomfortable when they set him on fire.

ZAYN.

I’m just saying!

Need I remind you who invited him?!

I’m not gonna ask him to change to please somebody else. That’s like… that’s like his whole thing.

Deep.

Seriously

Okay, so what do you suggest we do?

I don’t know!

Can you like… keep an eye on him? Like make sure no one messes with him?

And don’t you tell me that you don’t want to distract yourself from NIall, you got us into this mess.

God damn it. Fine! Niall wouldn’t mind watching him either.

He wouldn’t want to make out anyway there’s music happening nearby

I know shut the fuck up

Louis put his phone to the side, feeling no less nervous but just a bit more confident.

~ ~ ~

School passed with not much more incident; Harry had sat down with them at lunch and immediately gushed about how excited he was to watch Louis perform (which was, like, really sweet and cute and slightly terrifying.)

And all day he was trying to drum up a kind and gentle way to perhaps suggest to Harry that he should leave the sweaters and khakis at home that night. He briefly considered telling Harry that there was a dress code but there would be no way to prove that when they showed up and the outfits ranged from ripped t-shirts and cargo pants to nipple pasties and not much else. And every time he thought he’d come up with a good excuse, he’d look over at Harry, who looked so cozy and content in his (not-so) little sweater with his hair slicked back and his broken glasses perched cheerily on his nose (somehow Louis had come to find all of these features endearing and he vaguely wondered if this was cause for alarm) and the words always died on his tongue.

Before he knew it, it was the end of the school day and Louis had to rush to one last band practice then go straight to the gig and he came to the worrisome realization that he wouldn’t be seeing Harry again until he showed up with Zayn and Niall.

 

Zayn asked if he wanted him to say something but he’d steadfastly refused, mostly because Zayn didn’t know him that well yet and he didn’t want Harry to think Zayn had something against his clothes, but also because he almost preferred Harry where what he wanted, whatever he showed up in. This was probably out of Harry’s comfort zone, going out and being in a crowd, deafening music, flashing colors and gyrating bodies. He wanted him to be as comfortable in his own skin as possible.

He just wished that maybe that wouldn’t be so incriminating to him.

He was slightly distracted all through their rehearsal, missing his cue on one of the songs he wrote and causing Josh to throw his drumstick at him.

“This is a big night, mate, we can’t have you not on your game!” he’d griped and Louis just rolled his eyes.

It didn’t matter what happened in rehearsals, whenever Louis got up on stage, it was the only thing that was happening in the world. He knew that, his bandmates knew that, they just liked to pretend they had something over him.

By 6:25, they’d left Louis’s house (not before his mum gave him a hug and a quick, good-luck kiss on the cheek, safely away from his bandmate’s prying eyes (he had a reputation to uphold),) and stopped at a McDonald’s to grab something to eat before going right to the venue. Louis, as usual, didn’t eat, never did, claimed that the grease messed with his vocal cords when in reality he just had nerves and didn’t want to spew half-digested Chicken McNuggets all over the crowd later on that night. Of course, he was a bit more nervous tonight than most, even more a reason not to eat.

When they got to the venue, a old, now unused warehouse turned bar/club/rave spot, there were already people lining up at the door and some people were already inside, chatting and drinking, dancing lazily to some awful, gear-grindy dubstep song. He glanced around and as of yet caught no sight of Zayn, Niall, or Harry.

Once he’d helped his band set up the equipment and all, he pulled his phone out, sending off a quick text to Zayn.

Are you here yet?

Just pulled up, mate.

Good. I’ll come out and see you

He walked out behind the curtain, which was actually just a giant tarp that covered up the stage, but semantics, and walked out through the throngs of people, trying to find the other three. He expected to see Harry’s abnormally tall figure peeking out over the crowd, but saw not a single curl, slicked back or otherwise (well, he did, on this hippie stoner guy with his curly, blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail, eyes lifeless behind purple-tinted Lennon-esque glasses, but still, no Harry.)

Eventually, he spotted Zayn at the door, head still visible over all the people but just the top of his hair. Harry was probably at least a head taller than nearly everyone there.

He made his way over to Zayn, who was pulling Niall along by the hand to the side, away from the masses. He cocked an eyebrow when he just saw the two of them.

“Hey!” he called over the music and they turned towards him, Zayn smiling and Niall waving enthusiastically at him. He waved back. “Where’s Harry?”

“What?” Zayn asked, not hearing him.

“Harry!” he said again, poking the bridge of his nose as if pushing up a pair of imaginary glasses.

“Oh,” Zayn said, nodding in understanding. “He’s not here yet!”

“Didn’t he come with you?” Louis asked.

“No! Said he wanted to bring his own car in case he needed to be designated driver!” And wow, just when Louis thought Harry Styles couldn’t get any sweeter.

“When is he gonna get here?”

“I don’t know, mate! He’s your boyfriend!” Zayn yelled back.

“He’s your what?!” Niall broke in suddenly and Louis tensed up, cheeks flushing.

“Nothing, love, Zayn’s just a horrible human being, you should divorce him, take the kids, and move back in with your mum,” Louis said, leaning closer to Niall, who giggled. He turned back to Zayn. “And please do shut your cock-hole, Malik, he’s my friend. That’s it!”

“Yeah, well-” Zayn had just been about to respond when the words dissolved in his throat, eyes wide and jaw dropped. Niall noticed his sudden silence and followed his gaze, face taking on a similar expression a second later.

“What is the matter with you two?” Louis asked just as he felt someone tap his shoulder.

“Hey, mate,” he heard a familiar deep voice drawl in his ear and he smiled.

“Aw, good, Styles, you’re here. Glad to have someone else who’s slightly sane here,” he said, turning around and oh, now he understood.

Harry’s eyes were smiling down at him, uninterrupted by any glasses or lenses, the only obstruction a wayward curl falling over his forehead. So Harry’s hair wasn’t slicked back. Not only that, but it was pulled back underneath a bandana rolled up into something like a headband. Cocoa curls exploded out of the top of it, falling backwards easily like he’d just run his fingers through them once.

 

There was no silly sweater to be seen, just a plaid flannel draped over his broad shoulders, the sleeves rolled up to just below his elbow, a thin white t-shirt underneath, the top riding low enough so that he could just see the twin swallows peeking out at them. He also had several necklaces wound around his neck, falling just past his collarbones (his oh so deliciously visible collarbones) and Louis wondered what it would be like to grab those necklaces and just yank Harry forward and just-

He was wearing skinny jeans, ludicrously skinny jeans, stretching beautiful over every curve of his endless legs. On his feet were brown suede boots that had seen better days, but they might as well have stepped right off the runway the way Harry made them look.

He looked amazing, even better than last time, and Louis had never felt his mouth go so dry so fast.

When Louis came back to awareness, he realized his mouth had been moving up and down for quite a while with no sound leaving them.

“H-How-” he cleared his throat. “Hi, Harry.”

“Hey, Lou,” the other replied, smiling hugely, exposing those dimples, then pulling the shorter boy into a hug. He smelled like some musky cologne and sort of like an orange that he’d probably eaten in the car and wow he was so warm.

“H-Hi, hey, uh…” he tried not to so blatantly drag his eyes up and down his body when he pulled back but it was really beyond his control at this point and so he just hoped Harry wouldn’t notice. “Where, um… where is your sweater vest? Y-You look good, though. Anyway.”

Harry glanced down at himself, as if to remind himself he was without it today. He smiled a little.

“Thanks,” he said. “Um, I don’t know, I wanted to wear something a little… cooler? I guess? Thought my other clothes would be a little less welcome here.” Louis blinked, feeling a bit ashamed. He always forgot that just because Harry chose to wear those clothes to school and liked them didn’t mean that he didn’t know what they suggested about him. He was a smart kid, insanely so. “And I didn’t want you to have be embarrassed on your big night.”

“I wouldn’t have been embarrassed!” Louis rushed to say, guilt festering in his heart. “Harry, you know I wouldn’t have minded-”

“No, no, I know,” Harry said, cheeks coloring. “I didn’t mean it like… I just didn’t want you to be worried about me or anything. And even if you wouldn’t be embarrassed… I don’t want your band to be associated with… you know. That.”

 

Louis felt his heart crack a bit. “Harry…”

“Don’t worry about that, Lou,” Harry said. “This is your night. I’m a minor detail.” Louis frowned because Harry was not a minor detail, in fact he was becoming more major by the minute. “And honestly, I’m becoming rather fond of these types of clothes. Skinny jeans are nice, like a hug for your legs.”

“Are you sure?” Louis asked, feeling Zayn’s gaze on the back of his head.

“Positive,” he replied. “And I’m really excited about the headband. My hair’s out of my face and I won’t have to wash all the gel out later.” He glanced up, seeming to notice Zayn and Niall for the first time. “Oh, hello, lads. All right?”

Louis wasn’t really sure what they said, if anything at all, he was too focused on Harry himself; long, lean, smart, gorgeous Harry and how he was here and looking more gorgeous than ever, how he was here and sweeter than honey, how he was here and he’d worn different clothes for him so he could come listen to him play with his band and to make sure he didn’t have to worry about him getting beat up or anything and wow.

His stomach was churning and his heart was beating and it had nothing to do with stage fright.

He felt a tight grip on his arm and he let himself get dragged away. When they were a good distance away from where Harry and Niall were chatting amiably, Zayn stopped and grabbed his shoulders, turning him to look straight at him. Louis watched him, waiting.

 

The darker boy frowned, then sighed. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you.”

“No shit.”

“But could you blame me?”

“Yes.”

“He wears the vests and the khakis and the glasses and-”

“Whatever. It’s fine.”

“Good. Now that that’s out of the way, you wanna try and tell me again that you don’t have a crush on him?” Louis looked up at Zayn, face blank.

“I haven’t the faintest of what you’re talking about,” he said and Zayn groaned, throwing his head back dramatically.

“Louis, come on,” he said. “I’ve never seen you struggle so much to get a whole sentence out and I’ve been around you drunk. Really, really drunk.”

“So I’m coherent when I’m inebriated. So what? You cry when you’re drunk,” Louis countered.

“Once,” Zayn growled. “Look, that’s not the point! I’ve never seen you get so nervous over anybody. Like, that means something.”

“Why does it matter so much to you whether or not I have a crush on Harry?” Louis asked defensively. “Like, what will admitting it do for you? Not that I am. Admitting it.”

“I just don’t like not knowing what’s going on with you,” Zayn said. “And, like, then I could help you.”

“Help me what?” he asked, sighing. This was getting old really fast.

“I don’t know. Like… help you date him or something,” he said and Louis swore he felt something like a blood vessel pop in his brain.

“Zayn, did Niall suck your brains out through your dick?” he asked, noting Zayn’s warning look that clearly said Do not talk about him like that. “You know what I mean. I don’t even have a crush on Harry, why would you think I want to date him?”

“It’s a little more cause-and-effect. I know you like him, so I think you should date him,” the darker boy said.

“You’re mental,” he said, starting to stalk away. “I have to go get ready for my set.”

“Don’t fight it, mate!” Zayn called after him. “Love is a beautiful thing.”

Louis flipped him off as he went towards the stage, stopping to tell Niall and Harry he was going to get ready to perform. Niall smiled hugely and hugged him, wishing him luck.

“Break a leg, Lou,” Harry said, pulling him into a hug as well. “I know you’ll be fantastic.” He squeezed him, patted his back, then sent him off his way, flashing him a ridiculous smile and a thumbs up.

Louis smiled at him, returning the gesture, then turned and walked u to the stage, trying not to think about how good Harry smelled.

 

And how he wasn’t completely sure Zayn was mental anymore.

~ ~ ~

“Hello, everyone, we are The Rogue!” Louis yelled into the microphone and the crowd responded generously, whooping and cheering before they even knew if they were any good (a lot of them were getting on drunk so.) Louis scanned the crowd and could immediately pick out his friends near the back, Zayn cheering along, Niall jumping and trying to see over the people, and Harry waving his arms like a lunatic. Louis fought a small smile and continued, “Are you ready for some heinous, ear-splitting, Satan-worshipping, government-hating noise tonight?!” The crowd really seemed to enjoy that and Louis swore he heard someone scream “Down with the system!”

They started with an original song, one that Louis and their bassist, Stan, had written one day while they were hopped up on Red Bull and Stan’s girlfriend had just broken up with him. The people in the crowd had never heard the song before, but they didn’t seem to mind, they jumped and pounded their fists to the resulting sounds of caffeine and teenage angst. They were loving it.

Louis was completely focused on singing, staying in tune with the audience to know what they liked and what they didn’t (he regarded every crowd they played for as a focus group, guinea pigs, as it were,) but he still tried to find Harry, Zayn, and Niall, discovered they were now very nearly at the front of the crowd, right in front of him.

And he knew it was just another show and he’d done this a dozen times before, but he pointedly kept his eyes away from Harry’s; he knew the debilitating effects those things had when aimed at you and if ever there was a time to not fall victim to them, it was now.

The song finished to a mild roar of approval from the audience and they queued up the next song, a cover of “Chocolate” by The 1975. The crowd whooped at the familiar sound of the first few bars and Louis smiled. Covers always did incredibly well for them.

He was bobbing along to the song, flipping the mic stand between verses and watching delightedly as the crowd below tried to sing along to the somewhat unintelligible lyrics, made even more hilarious than usual because half of them were drunk and slurring. At the front, Zayn had all but given up trying to sing along and was just nodding along to the beat, Niall was still trying, bless him, eventually just mumbling under his breath and then shouting out “chocolate” when the time came. He bit back a laugh and quickly turned away as to avoid snorting into the microphone and his eyes immediately fell on Harry. Whose pillowy lips were forming the exact lyrics in perfect sync with the song, which Louis only knew because his own lips were moving the same way. And wow, okay, that was… something, and Louis wished he could say he hadn’t expected Harry to know The 1975, but by now he’d learn to expect the unexpected from that boy.

Louis didn’t realize that he was still staring at Harry until the other’s eyes flitted up quickly and he noticed Louis’s gaze, a smile stretching onto his still moving lips. He started bobbing along with more vigor, as if to express his approval through dance. Louis couldn’t hold back a chuckle this time but luckily the song was just coming to an end, so he pulled himself together and sang the last lines before the music faded out.

They sang two more original songs, both written by Louis, and by the time they started the next song, the crowd was hyped up and bouncing along, Louis even spotted a few people with their cell phones out, recording, which was awesome because videos meant documentation which meant sharing with other people. He belted through Ed Sheeran’s “Give Me Love” and then the Arctic Monkeys and the XX and he kept peeking down at Harry and kept finding him following the lyrics perfectly and at this point, he was kind of hoping they would cover a song Harry didn’t know.

They performed one more song of their own before and then Louis stood at the mic to announce their last song of the night.

“You’ve all been absolutely incredible tonight, thank you all so much for coming out to see us!” He went through their usual schtick about finding them on Facebook and rattled off their Twitter handle, trying to tell himself there had to be one person in here sober enough to look them up. “Okay, enough formalities! Here’s ‘Teenage Dirtbag’! Thank you so much, we’ve been The Rogue!”

He looked down at his friends, found Zayn and Niall to be much too preoccupied with each other to do much more than cheer vaguely for the song, but noticed Harry staring straight up at him, beaming with excitement and pride, like watching him perform up on that stage brought him some sort of personal joy, which it might have, he’d been screaming and cheering like a banshee throughout the whole show, even though Louis knew that even though The Rogue was good, they weren’t nearly good enough for that level of enthusiasm, and Louis felt his cheeks flushing further under the hot lights and he tried to ignore how his stomach was twister into deeper and deeper knots as he crooned the first line.

~ ~ ~

The Rogue all bowed together, arms around each other, to roaring applause before the curtains closed and they left the stage. Louis helped his bandmates move the equipment and pack it up and he settled up with the owner of the club, smiling as he accepted the small bundle of cash. His bandmates patted his back and congratulated him on a job well done as they passed before walking out the back door to their cars.

Harry was on him almost the second he stepped back out into the parking lot, throwing his arms around him and yanking him into a hug.

“Oh, my gosh, that was incredible, Lou!” he squealed. “I had no idea you were such a good singer! Wait, like, I knew you were good but not that good, like you were amazing!” Louis found himself blushing where he’d normally bask in the praise, almost bashful.

“Nah, it was just another show,” he mumbled, stepping back a little.

“No, don’t undersell yourself, Louis!” Harry said. “That was fantastic! Like, so, so good.”

“Come off it,” he said, waving him off.

“No, really,” Harry gushed, but was interrupted when Zayn tapped on his shoulder.

“Sorry, to interrupt this heartwarming display, but I have to get Niall home, so if you don’t mind, could I say goodbye to the shining star, please?” he said and Harry smiled and nodded, moving to the side to let him through. Zayn stepped forward and gathered Louis into a hug, patting his back a few times. “Good job, mate, smashed it as usual.”

“Thanks, lad,” Louis replied, smiling again when Niall moved to hug him next.

“You really are awesome,” the blonde said. “You and I need to jam sometime.”

“Definitely,” he agreed.

Niall and Zayn were just walking to Zayn’s car when the smaller of the two seemed to remember something and rushed back, a huge smile on his face.

“By the way, there’s going to be a party at Liam’s next weekend,” he said. “You should come.”

“Be sure to, mate,” Louis said, because Liam’s parties were the best, even though there were a ton of people who didn’t like Louis and who Louis didn’t like right back, Liam was a friend of his so no one ever gave him trouble.

“Sick,” Niall said, smiling then turning to Harry. “You should come too, mate.”

Harry blinked down at him, eyes wide in surprise. “Me? Really?” he asked.

“Of course!” Niall said. “It’ll be loads of fun.” Zayn, who had walked back to the group and wound an arm around Niall’s waist, nodded.

“Yeah, Liam throws some good parties,” he said.

“I’m not sure I’ll be welcomed there,” Harry said, smiling sheepishly and shrugging and Louis was reminded why he hated some of the kids at his school, because what kind of person makes someone feel unwelcome at a party, especially someone like Harry? “School punching bag, remember?” he said it with an airiness and nonchalance that was kind of heartbreaking and the other three of them winced a little.

“Well, Liam is a great guy, loves everybody and everything,” Niall said. “And he’s sure to love you. You and him can be the king of bad jokes together.”

“Heeeyyy,” Harry drawled. “My jokes aren’t bad. They’re specifically crafted for pun-enthusiasts.”

“A quickly dying breed,” Louis griped, rolling his eyes but Harry just smirked at him.

“Anyway, once Liam knows you’re with us, he won’t let anyone lay a finger on you,” Niall continued. “He’s a very protective guy, you know?”

“And if that’s not enough, we’ll look after you,” Zayn said, smiling his crooked smile at him. “But honestly, I don’t expect anyone to give you much trouble. When someone starts a brawl at Liam’s parties, they get kicked out and aren’t invited back.”

“A horrid fate,” Niall said, fake-shuddering, before training those big eyes back on Harry. “So will you come?”

“Maybe,” Harry said, after considering it for a minute. “Sounds like it could be fun.”

“Well, think about it,” Zayn said, smiling before turning the two of them around and waving. “We really do have to go though. See you later, lads.”

“Right,” Louis called out, grinning devilishly. “Because you have to make sure you schedule in car make-out time before curfew, right?”

Zayn’s shoulders hunched and Niall’s laugh rang out into the night as they made their way to Zayn’s car, now hand-in-hand (just because Zayn told him some things in confidence doesn’t mean they aren’t too delicious not to share.)

Then it was just him and devastatingly handsome Harry left alone in the parking lot. Neither of them spoke for a few minutes but the content expression on the younger’s face suggested it wasn’t nearly as awkward for him as it was for Louis.

“Wanna go grab a burger?” Harry suddenly asked and Louis glanced up at him.

“It’s 11:30 at night,” he replied. Harry checked his watch, seemed to consider this for a moment.

“Wanna go grab a burger and a milkshake?”

~ ~ ~

“What do you mean you don’t dip your chips in your milkshake?” Harry asked, doing just that with the chocolate milkshake and the chip in his hand and popping it in his mouth, much to Louis’s disgust.

“Because that’s disgusting,” he said, wrinkling his nose and Harry snorted.

“Obviously you’ve never done it before,” he said.

“And I don’t plan to,” he quipped, picking a sesame seed off of his bun and flicking it away as if it was bothering him.

“But you’re missing out, Lou!” Harry said. “Think of all the things you’re missing out on just because you’re dismissing them as ‘unusual’ or ‘unorthodox’.”

Louis stared at him. “I have blue hair, Harry.”

“Just try it?” he pleaded. “I will buy you a whole new milkshake if you don’t like it.”

Well, another milkshake did sound intriguing.

“But won’t it ruin the shake? Like, make it salty and whatnot?” he asked, eyeing the tall glass nervously.

“That’s part of the magic,” Harry said. “It doesn’t.”

Louis glanced at Harry, then at the milkshake, before sighing and picking up a chip.

“I’m so gonna regret this,” he grumbled, moving to dip the chip into his milkshake.

“Stop!” Harry cried and Louis jumped, eyes wide.

“What?! I thought you wanted me to-”

“It has to be a chocolate milkshake,” he said gravely.

“Why?!”

“Because otherwise it won’t taste right!” he said.

 

“There are rules to this?” Louis asked.

“No, but there are ways to do it wrong,” Harry said.

“And people do this?” the smaller boy said. “Like, this is a thing?”

“You’re the only person I’ve ever met who hasn’t tried it,” he said and Louis sighed again.

He reached over the table and Harry leaned back, fully offering his milkshake for Louis to use, and dipped his chip into the creamy drink.

 

He stared at it, golden brown color hidden under the light chocolate mixture, then popped it into his mouth before he could talk himself out of it.

His eyes blew wide because wow, this was a thing he didn’t know about and he could’ve been doing it this whole time? He tried to play it off, but he knew Harry had seen his expression. Didn’t stop him from shrugging noncommittally and going “S’okay.” Harry just grinned at him, saying nothing when Louis grabbed another chip and dipped it into his milkshake again. After a moment, Harry beckoned the young waitress over and asked her for another chocolate milkshake.

“Yours is still full,” Louis stated.

“I know,” he said. “It’s for you.” Louis’s mouth fell open.

“No, you didn’t have to- I would’ve stopped eating from yours, I’m sorry, I-”

“No, Louis, it’s not that. I just want you to have a full milkshake of your very own to enjoy your first chipshake experience with,” Harry said, grinning at him.

“And I suppose you’re not going to let me pay for it?” he asked.

“You are correct, sir!” Harry said in his best game show announcer voice and Louis tried to hold back a smile.

 

“Chipshake?” he asked just as the waitress came back with the shake and placed it on the table, leaning forward probably far more than necessary then winking before scampering off. Louis pretended not to notice and pretended he wasn’t going to empty about eighteen sugar packets onto the diner floor before he left.

“So,” he said, biting into his burger. “You know The 1975? I saw you, like, singing the song and all that.”

“Have I been living under a rock? Yeah,” he said in that high voice he puts on sometimes and seriously, the boy just quoted Pitch Perfect at him, this was getting out of hand. “Your cover was fantastic, by the way.”

“Thank you,” he said, smiling bashfully again. “But I didn’t expect you to know them. They just don’t seem-”

“Like my type?” Harry asked, dropping his chin into the palm of his hand and smirking that way he did when Louis said he didn’t expect something of him. Louis nodded sheepishly and Harry’s smile grew. “What do you think is my type, Louster?”

“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “Barry Manilow? Tom Jones?”

“Are you saying you think of me as Carlton Banks?” he asked and Louis laughed.

“No. Well, kinda,” he said. “Why, can you do the dance?”

“Not in these jeans,” Harry said seriously and Louis almost snorted out his milkshake. “No, there’s nothing wrong with a little Tom Jones. But I can branch out.”

“Branch out into The 1975?” Louis asked.

“Yep,” he replied.

“The XX?”

“Of course.”

“The Arctic Monkeys?”

“Indubitably.”

“Wheatus?”

“You insult me, sir.”

“Okay, there’s no way you are that perfect,” Louis said before he could really stop himself and he press his lips together suddenly, face going very red. But he couldn’t really help it. He had this thing about music where if he found a guy that likes all the same bands that he did, he immediately had to wrap around him like a koala and never let go. “I-I mean… do you like Taylor Swift?”

“I’m sure she’s a lovely girl, but I’m not a fan, no,” he said, shrugging.

 

“There has got to be something musically incriminating about you,” Louis said and Harry frowned, thinking about it.

“Um… I rather like that ‘Call Me Maybe’ song,” he said. Well, it wasn’t great, but Louis could really hardly dock points on it.

“Okay, fine,” he said. “I’ll find out your flaw one way or another.” He took a drag from his milkshake. “So you really liked the show tonight?”

“Loved it,” Harry said, eyes sparkling. “You have an incredible voice, Louis.”

“Thanks,” Louis said, looking away and tracing his finger up and down the side of his glass, collecting the cold condensation on the pad of his finger.

“And you just have this way, like, you’re a great performer. And you can tell how much you love what you’re doing and how much you love music. It’s a really great thing to watch you perform,” Harry continued to say and Louis could feel his heart pounding so hard against his ribs he was worried that the jarring of it would shake the table.

“Th-Thanks,” he mumbled and Harry smiled.

“No problem,” he said. “I’d love to see you play again soon.”

Louis finally looked up, cheeks still on fire but eyes able to look at his. “I’d like that, too.”

He paused for a moment, collecting himself before moving on with the conversation.

“So, do you really think you might go to Liam’s party?” he asked and Harry shrugged again.

“Not really sure. I’ve never really been to one, so… don’t really know what to expect,” he said.

“Well, I’d like it if you were there,” Louis said, ignoring how the simple words left him feeling vulnerable and nervous.

“Really?” Harry asked, smiling slightly.

“Of course,” he said. “And Zayn was right, we really will look after you if you don’t feel welcome there.”

“I know you would,” he replied, nodding. “I just don’t want you to go out of your way for me.”

“Hey, we’re friends, right?” Louis said. “I want you there, so I’ll make sure you want to be there.”

Harry watched him for a few seconds before breaking into a soft smile. “Okay,” he said and Louis smiled back.

“You know,” Harry said after both of their milkshakes and plates were practically bare. “I distinctly remember you telling me that you didn’t want to be ‘buddies’ with me when we first became partners.”

Louis felt his face heating up and he would be quick to apologize if he didn’t know that Harry was teasing him.

“Yeah, well,” he said, smirking. “Things change.” He glanced up at Harry with those mischievous, sparkling eyes and the other returned the gaze.

Harry hummed, nodding and then they were just kind of staring at each other and the way he was looking at him was sort of making his heart hammer in his chest again and he wasn’t sure if it was really happening or not but he could swear one of them was leaning in just a little bit, hardly noticeable but still there, but before he could reflect on it further, the waitress was back and slammed the bill down between them, making them both jump.

Both of them are blushing and looking away, Harry up to the waitress with a sickly sweet smile on her face.

“Here’s your check, love,” she said, fluttering her eyelashes at him and Louis tried not to gag. “Call me whenever you’re ready, sugar.”

“Thanks,” he said, already turning away and accidentally missing how she swayed her hips as she walked away. “Don’t bother,” Harry quipped, not even looking up as Louis started digging through his pocket for money.

“But-”

“You put on a wicked show for me tonight. Consider us even,” Harry said, smiling at him as he finally wrestled his wallet out of his blasphemously tight jeans. As he did, several slips of white paper fell from its folds, crumpled up and wrinkled and Louis eyed them curiously.

“What are these?” he asked, reaching for one that had landed on the table and picking it up. He unfolded it and read what he quickly realized to be a number. Harry had gotten someone’s number. “Someone gave you their number?” He looked up at the table, at what was probably around six other slips of paper. “Are these all numbers?” Louis tried to ignore the unpleasant feeling churning in his stomach.

Harry picked up one of the papers lying in front of him, then another, and a third. “I guess they are,” he said.

“You guess?” Louis parroted, trying very much not to sound like he was interrogating the other boy.

“I wasn’t really paying attention, to be honest,” he said. “Was watching your show. I remember some groping, but I assumed it was all accidental.”

Louis’s jaw dropped. “People were groping you and you didn’t think it was strange or anything?”

Harry shrugged, cheeks rosy. “I kinda thought it was just normal club stuff, you know? Just… lots of touching because everyone’s so close together.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Louis said, still a little bewildered but recovering. “I definitely remember quite a few people copping a feel of my arse in clubs like that before.” He glanced up and noticed Harry’s features had become maybe a little bit harder than before. Oh God, he probably thought he was some sort of slut. “I mean, like, I wasn’t trying to get groped, it just happened.”

“Well, it shouldn’t,” Harry said, looking down and twirling the straw in his empty milkshake glass. “People should respect each other and their bodies. You’re not a piece of meat.”

Oh.

“W-Well, it’s something you just have to be careful about in a place like that,” he said, trying to ignore how he ribs were rattling with the butterflies fluttering around. “They were mostly all drunk anyway.” This didn’t seem to soothe Harry any, so he tried to change the subject. “So what about all these numbers though? Are you gonna use them? Try to pull?” That nasty feeling in his gut intensified as he said those words, but it was quelled a little as Harry shook his head.

“No, for a couple of reasons, the biggest of which is that those girls probably didn’t realize I’m still in high school,” he said and Louis smirked. “Secondly, I didn’t really see them, just ended up with their numbers in my pocket. I don’t want to call someone I don’t even know what they look like. Not that looks really matter. I just don’t want to not know the face that goes with the voice I’m hearing. Also, I’m not really the type for pulling people I’ve never met before either just because they’ve shown an interest. Or at all. In case you hadn’t noticed.” He finished off with one of those smirks that said he wasn’t beating down on himself, he was just being honest.

I don’t know, as the night goes on, I’m being sufficiently pulled, Louis thought to himself but cleared his throat as soon as it crossed his mind, as if the noise would block it out of his own head.

“You could be,” Louis said.

“I don’t really want to, though,” Harry said. “I’m more of a relationship type of guy.”

“I see,” Louis said, with a playful edge to his voice. “You want to know why she wears the type of knickers she does before making them drop, yeah?”

Harry laughed, head falling back. “I think it’s a little more in depth than that, but basically.”

The waitress came back then and took their bill, sauntering away again, not that Harry was any the wiser.

There was a moment of silence between the two of them, no longer awkward, at ease and content. After a minute or so, Harry spoke up.

“I think I’m gonna go to the party,” he said and Louis smiled hugely.

“Awesome, mate!” he said. “Don’t worry, we’ll take care of you.”

“Thanks,” Harry said, smiling back. “I appreciate it.” He paused for another second, pondering something. “I think… I’m gonna wear something like this to it, though.”

Louis felt his stomach twist again, but he wasn’t really sure why. “Oh?”

“Yeah,” he said, nodding. “I mean, like… my normal clothes aren’t really ‘party-friendly’,” he put the words in air-quotes. “and I don’t want anyone to lose Liam party privileges.”

Louis just gaped at him. “I can’t believe the lengths you’ll go to protect people who treat you like shit.”

Harry shrugged. “An eye for an eye.”

Louis sighed. “You are something else, Harry Styles.”

 

“I try,” the curly-haired boy said, smirking and showing off those rows of perfect, white teeth. The waitress returned again, receipt and Harry’s card in hand.

“Here you go, doll,” she said, dropping both on the table. “Come back any time.” She let her eyes dart to Louis for just a second, then dart back. “With or without friends, maybe?” Louis wished he could pour ketchup down her dress, but you know, eye for an eye.

“Thank you, love,” Harry said, smiling and nodding at her. She winked again and then walked off, back into the kitchen. Louis glared at her retreating back, then turned back to Harry, who was putting his card away. His eyes fell on the receipt and he grimaced.

“Looks like you’ve got another admirer, Haz,” he said, glaring at the numbers scrawled across the bottom of the receipt next to a winky face. Harry glanced down at the receipt and smirked. “At least you know what she looks like now, right?”

“Maybe,” he said, taking the receipt and carefully ripping off the end with the number written on it. Louis’s heart cracked and leapt into his throat because Harry might actually be taking the number, but he immediately relaxed when he watched him crumple it up into a ball with the other slips of paper with the girls’ numbers on them. Harry noticed Louis watching him and he blushed a little. “Well, I don’t want to just leave it here and have her think I’m outright rejecting her. I don’t want to hurt her feelings.”

“But…?” Louis asked, hoping he didn’t sound too hopeful or desperate.

“Not my type,” Harry said, standing up and walking to the door, tossing the paper ball in a garbage bin. “You coming?”

“Hang on, I’m just leaving the tip,” he said and Harry frowned, starting to walk back, but Louis stopped him. “Easy, Romeo, I can handle the tip. I’m a big girl, right?” Harry just smirked and nodded, walking out.

Louis watched to make sure he was gone, then reached into his pocket, took out two ones, and promptly stuffed them into a glass full of water. He grabbed a menu, placed it on the lip of the cup, then carefully turned the cup over so that it was upside-down. He slid the menu carefully out from underneath it, grinning at his handiwork, watching the money float around with the ice cubes in the overturned glass. He grabbed the receipt, scribbled “Enjoy your tip! P.S., you might want to get that tic checked out” with a winky face similar to hers, then skipped away, satisfied.

~ ~ ~

When Louis got home that night, he lay in his bed, spread-eagled over the covers, and let himself fell.

I have a ridiculously, unprecedentedly, vapidly enormous crush on Harry Styles.

And he expected his heart to sink and stomach to churn and mind to scream at him what a fool he was being, but nothing like that happened. Instead, he smiled.

~ ~ ~

When he woke up the next morning, still wearing his Vans and still smelling like sweat, smoke, and greasy foods, he grinned.

I have a crush on Harry Styles.

 

And the thought made his chest expand and he felt light and airy and free. And he wasn’t sure why because crushes were supposed to be horrid, they were supposed to break you and tear down your self-esteem and make you question why humans should ever love, but Louis. Louis just felt happy.

And why shouldn’t he? Harry was smart and kind and funny and he had great taste in music and he made Louis think and he made Louis a better person and he would never be able to thank him enough for that. Not to mention Harry was gorgeous and cute and he was built like he shouldn’t be a part of this world but he was. He was part of Louis’s world and that was magnificent.

He texted Zayn, stupid grin on his face.

So. I like Harry Styles.

 

A lot.

And he waited for the “No duh, asshole” or the “I fucking told you so,” but instead what he got was:

Good for you, Lou :)

And wow, Louis loved Zayn so much, he could cry.

Sorry I didn’t believe you. And stuff

It’s okay. I know how stubborn you are, we just have to get through that head of yours

Harry definitely did.

So what do you plan to do about it?

Louis paused, eyebrows raised. What was he going to do about it?

Is there something I HAVE to do? Like right now?

He was really just enjoying the feeling of knowing that he liked Harry and that he had found someone like Harry to break his walls down, why did he need to do anything about it?

I suppose not.

Good. I kind of want to just… BE with this right now. Like I want to enjoy the fluttery feeling first.

He smirked to himself, he had gauges and an eyebrow piercing and he was overjoyed by a “fluttery feeling.”

Then you enjoy that :) Let me know when you want it to be something more and I’ll help you

Thanks mate. So how was car make-out time last night ;)

Shut up.

A moment.

Awesome.

Louis just smiled, FaceTiming Zayn and letting him go on and on about Niall and then going on and on about Harry when Zayn asked, talking about his eyes and nose and lips and hair and face and how he liked the XX, the XX, Zayn, and so on.

He didn’t need Harry just yet (well, he did, he wasn’t really sure what he’d do if Harry wasn’t there anymore, but he didn’t need Harry just yet, like relationship Harry. He was fine where he was right now.) He loved the idea of him, he loved the concept that he was in his life. He didn’t need him to be his yet. He could wait for that.

~ ~ ~

By the time he blinked himself awake the next morning, he was struck by the overwhelming sensation of wanting to hold Harry’s hand. He imagined how those huge hands would feel in his, how small his own would look in comparison, how they would still slide together wonderfully despite the difference in size.

 

And he wanted to hug him too, not just hugging like friends, but unnecessarily long, persistent hugs where his nose would reach into his shoulder and he could breathe him in and Harry’s face would be buried into his collarbone and his long arms would wrap around his waist like Louis’s around his neck and they would be pressed together, no air between them, just feeling each other’s warmth and smelling their aromas and squeezing each other to let each other know how much they loved having the other pressed into him.

And he wanted kisses. God, he wanted kisses more than anything, he wanted quick kisses, lingering kisses, kisses on the cheek, on the neck, the forehead, the nose, jaw, everywhere. He wanted to feel those pillow-soft lips on his own, wanted to taste Harry, imagined he tasted like bananas or oranges or coffee or sunshine or happiness, just everything Harry. He wanted kisses where he had to stand on his tiptoes just to reach him and he wanted kisses where Harry would bend down so they were eye-to-eye. He wanted kisses where he could feel Harry against his lip piercing and he wanted kisses where he’d take it out and just let their lips slide over each other without obstruction (the idea was actually so appealing, he was considering taking the lip ring out for good.) He wanted kisses where his fingers would break the gel mold of Harry’s hair and make a crackling sound to match the feeling coursing through his veins and he wanted kisses where his fingers could easily glide through an endless forest of curls, the ringlets winding around his fingers like vines and pulling him in, deeper, deeper.

He wanted kisses standing up, he wanted them sitting, he wanted them lying down, he wanted them when Harry was standing and Louis had his arms around his neck and his legs around his waist, he wanted kisses where Louis would have his head lying in Harry’s lap as they watched TV and Harry would smile down at him and lean down at peck his lips softly.

And he wanted smiles, he wanted special smiles meant only for him, he wanted sparkling eyes and dimples peeking out when he walked into a room, he wanted sweet words whispered into his ear, because he knew Harry would be the type to wax poetic about someone that he cared about, he wanted big hands on his smaller body, he wanted that stupid, snorting laugh right in his ear and he wanted to be the cause of it always. He wanted to see Harry’s face if he ever sent him flowers or murmured “I’m crazy about you” in his ear or sang a silly love song into his jaw or jumped on his back and squeezed him and never let him go.

He wanted all of that and he quickly realized that this was probably what it felt like to be ready to make Harry his own. And it had only been a day, but Harry Styles had this special way about him, he supposed.

Do you think he likes me back? He waited for Zayn’s response.

That was fast.

So do you?

He came to your show and didn’t stop telling me how absolutely amazing you were and how you were born to be on stage and how you were going to make it someday so

Louis had never smiled so big in his entire life and his eyes were actually blurring a little big as he typed back.

He really said all that?

Couldn’t get him to stop saying it mate

Louis turned over onto his stomach and started screaming into his pillow, kicking his legs erratically against the covers and he wondered when he turned into a teenage girl and why he didn’t seem to mind it at all.

I want to kiss his face SO MUCH

Mate two days ago you would deny liking this kid until your dying breath

Two days ago I didn’t know how happy liking someone like him could make me

There was a long moment before Zayn sent his reply.

I’m really happy for you

Me too :)

:)

:)))))

:) :) :)

Please stop

Do you really think he likes me? Like it wouldn’t be stupid for me to ask him out?

But I kinda want him to ask me out?

 

Does that make me the girl?

Do I want to be the girl? I think I do

HOLY SHIT AM I A BOTTOM

Louis please shut up

I bet his dick is huge

Louis please we sit with him at lunch

Like his feet and hands are ENORMOUS

and you know what they say about big feet

Big socks?

Please stop this

I wonder if he’s circumcised

LOUIS

I HAVE TO SIT WITH HIM AT LUNCH I DON’T WANNA THINK ABOUT HIS DICK EVERY TIME I SEE HIM

I DO

LOUIS

ZAYN

YOU DO IT WITH NIALL

THAT’S DIFFERENT

NO IT’S NOT

IS NIALL CIRCUMCISED

I DON’T KNOW YOU PSYCHO

LIAR

LOUIS

IS HE SLICED

BUT SERIOUSLY DO YOU THINK HARRY LIKES ME

YOU’RE INSANE

AND YES PROBABLY

PROBABLY!??

WHY PROBABLY?!?!?!#@

BECAUSE I’M NOT HARRY I DON’T KNOW

BUT HE LOOKS AT YOU LIKE HE THINKS YOU’RE THE BEST THING SINCE CALCULUS TO HIM AND STUFF SO

DOES HE REALLY WHY DIDN’T I NOTICE IT

BECAUSE YOU LOOK AT HIM THE SAME WAY

I HATE CALCULUS

YOU LOOK AT HIM LIKE YOU LOOK AT FALL OUT BOY TICKETS

SHIT

I DO???

SHIT

HOW HAS HE NOT NOTICED

BECAUSE YOU’RE BOTH STUPID

SHOULD I ASK HIM OUT

I DON’T KNOW

YOU SAID YOU’D HELP ME

I GOT MY BOYFRIEND BY ACCIDENT REMEMBER

YOU LIED TO ME

I THOUGHT I’D HAVE MORE TIME TO COME UP WITH SOMETHING YOU JUST STARTED LIKING HIM YESTERDAY

NO I LIKED HIM A LONG TIME

I ONLY LIKE REALIZED IT YESTERDAY

SHIT WHAT IF I ACT ALL WEIRD AROUND HIM NOW

WEIRDER THAN YOU ARE ALREADY?

YES

IS THAT POSSIBLE

WHAT IF I ACCIDENTALLY ASK HIM ABOUT HIS PENIS

THERE ARE WORSE THINGS THAT COULD HAPPEN

NO THERE AREN’T

I’M SURE THERE ARE

LOOK JUST RELAX

HE HANGS OUT WITH YOU AND HE LIKES YOUR TATTOOS AND PIERCINGS AND BLUE HAIR

IT’S PURPLE NOW

WHATEVER

LIKE HE SEES PAST ALL THAT HE LIKES YOU FOR YOU HE THINKS YOUR FUNNY AND TALENTED RIGHT HE DOESN’T SEE LOUIS THE SCARY PUNK KID HE SEES LOUIS THE FUNNY SARCASTIC CHARMING LITTLE SHIT WHO CAN SING REALLY WELL AND LET HIM SIT ON HIS HOODIE WHEN HE BECAME A DINNER SPECIAL

HE DOESN’T LOOK AT THE PIERCINGS AND SHIT LOU HE LOOKS AT YOU AND I THINK THERE IS SOMETHING THERE OKAY

JUST RELAX AND DON’T BE WEIRD JUST BE THE SAME KID YOU’VE BEEN AND YOU’LL BE FINE

OKAY

Okay

Thanks Zayn

No problem mate

~ ~ ~

Louis, luckily, made it through the day without asking Harry once about his bits, but despite that small victory, he definitely wasn’t quite himself.

He kept giggling like a maniac every time Harry made a dumb joke or even when he wasn’t joking at all, he just kept laughing because Harry’s voice just made hundreds of butterflies tickle the inside of his ribs and it bubbled over before he could stop it.

Harry, fortunately enough, was naive enough to just look flattered under Louis’s ridiculous tittering while Zayn looked like he was having a constant inner debate on whether he should slap Louis or laugh at him.

They worked together after school that day and he kept his eyes on Harry the whole time, zoning out on more than one occasion when he was explaining something.

“Louis?” The older boy suddenly came back to awareness just in time to realize that Harry had leaned in rather close, patting Louis’s arm gently and wow, there he was, giggling uncontrollably again and turning redder by the second. He cleared his throat, trying to get himself under control, before turning back to Harry.

“U-Um, what was that, mate?” he asked and Harry looked concerned.

“Am I boring you? Because you kinda have this blank look on your face, like, I‘m not blaming you, I know I tend to ramble and stuff-”

“No! No, you’re fine, Haz, I could listen to you talk about British Imperialism forever,” his filter was pretty much out the window and he was never more happy that Harry was naive and kind of oblivious than right now (although that could stand to change in the near future,) as the taller lad smiled at him apologetically.

“That’s very nice, but you don’t have to say that,” he said. “I know that this is probably getting a little stale, it’s been almost two months now, yeah?”

Has it really? To Louis, it had all been one big blur of broken glasses and curly hair and tattoos and emotions with a little bit of learning in between.

“The project’s due next week, we just have to kind of push through to the end, okay? I’m really sorry if I’m sounding naggy,” he said but Louis shook his head.

“No, you’re fine. You’re right, I need to get my head straight,” he said. “Sorry for zoning out.”

“It’s fine, mate,” Harry replied, smiling softly and Louis felt kind of dizzy with how hard his heart was pounding mixed with how his stomach was churning because shit, there was only a week left of his and Harry’s library rendezvous and he never thought he would miss this stupid history project.

(It was with a heavy and horrified heart that he realized that night that his evil she-witch of a history teacher is what brought him and Harry together. He made a note to send her an anonymous fruit basket with a lovely arrangement of fruits, candies, and possibly a rubber snake.)

~ ~ ~

I want to fog up his glasses.

I want to swim in his dimples.

I want to rip off his sweater vest.

I want to lick his tattoos.

 

I want to leave purple dye on his pillows.

I want to leave hickies over the collar of that stupid shirt.

LOUIS FOR CHRIST’S SAKE IT’S 2 IN THE MORNING GO TO SLEEP

(Luckily, he was able to gain control over himself in the next few days.)

~ ~ ~

It’s when he’s driving Zayn home from school that Thursday and they’re discussing important matters that it hit him.

“So I’ve done more thinking about this bottom thing,” Louis said and Zayn groaned.

“Louis, did you honestly not know you were a bottom before you this weekend?” he asked.

“I had a hunch,” he sniffed. “And I’m not, like, a permanent bottom. We can switch up and I can, like, bottom from the top and all that, but, like-”

“Louis, you’re not even dating yet,” Zayn said.

“No, this is, like, in general,” he said matter-of-factly. “I’ve done some soul-searching and I thought about all these hot guys and I realized that for every guy, I want to be underneath them.”

“Dear lord.”

“Like, I want to be under David Beckham. Like, constantly,” he said.

“Naturally,” Zayn remarked.

“And that one guy from Magic Mike, I’d love to be under him.”

“Channing Tatum?”

“No, the other one. The bloke who let the young guy feel his wife’s tits.”

“Oh, right, him.”

“Yeah,” he continued. “And Harry, obviously.”

“Obviously.”

“I did think of one guy I’d top for, but only as a pride thing.”

“Who?”

“Michael Cera.”

“You’d fuck Michael Cera?”

 

“No. Ew. No, he’s the only person I could think of that I would have to top for otherwise I’d be a sham.”

“All right, fine,” Zayn said. “So have you given any thought as to how you’re going to ask Harry out yet?”

“No,” Louis said, blushing despite their previous conversation being ridiculously more embarrassing than this. “I don’t want to scare him off, like, what if he rejects me?”

“Then make it sound casual,” he said. “Just invite him to go to the party with you this weekend, drive over together, all that. Make it kind of casual but if you get the feeling he wants it to be a date, make it a date. Leave room open for discretion.”

“That’s a thought, I guess,” Louis said. He smiled a little to himself. “He said he was gonna wear his ‘hot guy’ clothes to the party.”

“He calls them his ‘hot guy’ clothes?” Zayn asked.

“No, you dolt,” Louis snapped. “I do. He just calls them regular people clothes, bless him.”

“He got a lot of attention at your gig with those,” Zayn said thoughtfully.

“Mate, he got, like, seven numbers from all these different birds,” Louis said.

“He did?” Zayn said, turning wide-eyed to look at him. “Lou, if he’s the type for that, I’m not sure-”

“Calm yourself, Mama Bear,” Louis said, rolling his eyes. “The girls gave him their numbers. Slipped them into his pockets, didn’t even notice.”

“How do you know he was telling the truth?” Zayn asked.

“It’s Harry,” Louis said and Zayn considered this, seemingly placated. “Also, the waitress at the diner we went to slipped him her number as well and he threw it out with the other numbers. Not in front of her or anything, he didn’t want to reject her straight out.” He didn’t realize the fond tone his voice had taken on until Zayn was looking at him funny. He blushed, hunching his shoulders up. “He’s just really sweet, okay?”

“Sure, mate, I gotcha,” Zayn said, smirking. “It’s just really funny how different it is, like, he changes into his ‘hot person’ disguise and suddenly he’s the most desirable man alive.”

Louis was about to respond when suddenly something struck him and it struck him so hard he made the car veer to the right a little and Zayn yelped in alarm.

“Lou, what the fuck’s wrong with you?” he cried.

“Oh, my God.”

“What?”

“Oh, my God.”

“What?”

“Zayn. Zayn, Harry’s hot,” Louis said, as if he was in despair and Zayn cocked an eyebrow at him, confused.

“Yeah, I know, you never shut up about it,” he said and Louis shook his head furiously.

“No, but he’s going to be hot at the party,” he said.

“Okay?” Zayn said and Louis huffed.

“All the girls are going to see him and want him and stuff!” he cried. “They’re gonna see how hot he is and drape themselves over him and I won’t get a chance anymore!”

“Louis, relax,” Zayn said, reaching over the center console and squeezing Louis’s arm. “Harry’s a guy of substance, okay? He’s not the type of guy to go after some random bird because she has a pretty face and she shows an interest in him. He doesn’t like that superficial stuff.”

“But what if he is? Like, what if he gets all this attention for the first time and loves it?” Louis asked, fully starting to panic.

“You just told me he threw all those numbers out,” Zayn said.

“Because they were random!” Louis said, world crumbling around him. “He knows these girls!” Oh, God, why didn’t he realize this before now, when he had more time to come up with a plan?

“No, he doesn’t, Lou,” Zayn said, voice still even. “Well, he does, but he knows that they are only interested in his appearance, he knows that most of them are shallow. You know him and appreciate him for who he is and he knows that and appreciates that more than he does just a pretty face.”

“But he’ll have all those pretty girls around him and fawning over him and- and-”

“And what?” Zayn prompted him.

“What would he want to do with me?” Louis rarely did this, the pity thing, because honestly, what did he have to not be confident about? But there was something about Harry, how he should be so easy to like and to have but at the same time he has so many layers and he’s so much more than just a handsome face and he just felt suddenly so inadequate.

“Louis, please don’t make me get preachy on you,” Zayn groaned.

“I don’t want your fucking preachiness,” Louis grumbled.

“Well, you’re gonna get it if you don’t knock it off,” Zayn said, eyes narrowed. “Look, Harry doesn’t care about appearances, he cares about heart and how you treat people. That’s one of the reasons you like him, right?” Louis nodded. “Right. So just relax, invite him to the party with you and have a good time together. He probably is going to get a lot of attention,” Louis winced. “But, he won’t even notice because he’ll be spending the whole night with you.”

Louis was still quiet but he nodded, expression softening just a little bit.

 

“Okay, I will,” he said resolutely, nodding again to himself.

“Good,” Zayn said, patting his arm.

There was a beat of silence between them as Louis flicked on a turn signal and made the turn.

“Thanks, asshole.”

“No problem, twat.”

~ ~ ~

Hey Curly

Hey Lou :) Done band practice?

Yeah. Whatcha up to?

Reading while waiting for my laundry to be done. Nerdy things.

You do your own laundry

You don’t?

I tried once. ONCE

Tried?

Mother’s Day ’08. I woke up early to try and do the washing before my mum woke up and I was so confused there were so many buttons so I had to call Zayn to ask him how to do it and he had to ask his mum.

Please tell me there’s a happy ending to this story

Fraid not, Dimples. It was madness. We lost Phoebe in the bubbles. She’s still not over it.

Oh lord.

On the bright side, the overflow ended up cleaning the floor, so that was a plus.

I hope your mum shared the same optimistic point of view.

She appreciated the gesture. She thought it was thoughtful. But I’m not allowed in the laundry room anymore.

With good reason.

Well if you ever need laundry tutoring, I’d be happy to help. I’m a seasoned expert.

I bet you’ve never lost a single sock

You should see what I can do with an iron

Louis bit back a grin, because Harry being goofy made him feel things he wasn’t used to feeling it was just really warm and fuzzy and he kinda wished he could capture this feeling and make it into a scented candle.

I’m sure it’s impressive

But yeah I actually had something to ask you

You mean you didn’t text me to trade laundry tips?

Well, that wasn’t the ONLY reason ;)

But you know Liam’s party tomorrow?

Sure do :)

Did you want to like drive over together or something? I can pick you up

Sure :)

Louis felt his heart leap.

Did you need me to be designated or something?

And it sunk again. Harry always seemed to assume that whenever somebody wanted him somewhere, it was so someone could use him for something and they didn’t actually want him to be a part of it, didn’t want his company. Louis wished he could undo all the years of neglect that had made him think that way.

no! I mean like I wanted us to go together and then hang out you know?

contrary to popular belief, I actually enjoy your company

I didn’t really mean it like that, but thank you :)

I just meant that like if you DO need a DD, I’m happy to help.

Don’t you want to drink?

I’m not a huge drinker myself. And I’d rather not drink and make sure you get home safe.

Louis wished he could stick his tiny hands through the phone and grab Harry and kiss him.

Well then I won’t drink either

You don’t have to do that, I really don’t mind.

No, it’s okay. I’d rather hang with you than get drunk with people I don’t like. :)

He hoped that made Harry’s heart flip the way his own did with the other boy’s words. The way his own did while typing them.

Thanks, Lou :) That’s really nice

Well, I’m not drinking tomorrow, whether or not you decide to, so if you change your mind

I won’t. Pick you up at 8?

Sounds awesome :)

Louis breathed a sigh of relief, his heart rate finally returning to normal and feeling foolish for ever thinking Harry would say “no,” to just driving with him. It’s not quite a date, but it was getting there.

~ ~ ~

The next day, the two of them decided to meet up in the library after school to go over their project one last time before Monday, when they would be presenting it.

“Can’t believe we’re done this project,” Harry said, flipping through the slides of the powerpoint on his computer.

“I know,” Louis said, dropping his face to the textbook in front of him, the page sticking to his cheek. “I didn’t think I’d make it out alive.”

 

“You did fine,” Harry said, smiling down at him. “You came really far, Louis. By the end you knew all the material yourself.”

“Only because you taught me it,” he muttered.

“Well, how do you expect to know the material without being taught it?” Harry said and Louis smirked.

“I don’t think I could’ve made it through this project with anyone but you,” Louis said honestly. “I would’ve killed them.”

“You were ready to kill me at the beginning,” Harry teased and Louis shrugged.

“I’m always at least fifty-five percent ready to kill everybody at all times,” he said.

“What about Zayn?” Harry asked.

“He fluctuates,” Louis said. “His baseline is five percent, but before he got with Niall and used to talk about him all the time it would shoot to forty-five.”

“What about now that they’re together?”

“Eighty-five.” Harry snorted.

“And Niall?”

“The kid is an angel, I’d say three,” he said.

 

“And me?”

“Like, one,” Louis said, lifting his head from the book to meet Harry’s eyes. He smiled. “You’ve really mellowed me out, Styles.”

“Really?” The other boy asked, turning to him, and Louis nodded. A huge smile grew across Harry’s face, green eyes twinkling. “Well, I hope I’ve not done too good a job. We do have a bit of a shindig to go to tonight.”

Louis groaned, knocking his head back against the book. “I’m not sure I even want to go to it now that you’ve called it that. Who calls a high school party a ‘shindig’?”

“What would you prefer I call it?” Harry asked, shutting his laptop and putting it away. “A ‘hootenanny’?”

“Ugh, stop,” Louis said, putting his books away and standing up.

“A soiree?”

“Ew.”

“A cotillion?”

“No.”

“A wingding?”

“One more word, Styles, and you’re walking to the party.”

“Sorry,” Harry said, opening the door to the library and holding it open for Louis. “Wouldn’t want to be hoofing it to the carouse.”

“I am now ten percent ready to kill you,” Louis said, traipsing away, Harry following close behind with a smirk on his pretty face.

~ ~ ~

This was stupid.

Well, all high school parties were stupid and ill-advised and probably dangerous and generally counterproductive to the advancement of society. But this one was especially stupid.

For some reason or another, Louis had decided to try what his sisters (and Zayn) had suggested as the “cinnamon-bun” hairdo, in which his fringe fell over his forehead in an elegant curl that sort of looked like Superman’s but if he were a Gucci model. At least, that’s what it looked like in the magazine and what it was supposed to look like on his head. Regrettably, he hadn’t realized that the hairdo probably looked best with an actual, normal hair color, such as brown or blonde or anything that wasn’t the electric violet Louis was sporting on his head.

 

And the hairdo worked just fine, it curled just right and it would probably look awesome on a normal head of hair, but now it just looked like cotton candy or some other confectionary monstrosity that was not meant to resemble hair.

Nevertheless, it had been too late to shower and reset it once it was done, so he’d thrown on his vans and prayed to whatever deity that would listen that it would settle by the time he got to Harry’s (it didn’t improve, but it didn’t worsen either.)

And now, he was sitting outside Harry’s house with his stupid candy floss hairdo and stuffed into jeans that were probably a full size too small (but they made his arse look fantastic, so he couldn’t complain) and nervously tapping his fingers against the steering wheel as he waited for the curly-haired boy to emerge, no doubt looking even more scrumptious than usual.

Honestly, what was he expected to do with himself tonight?

Louis was, by nature, a rather possessive person. He’d had a phase at age ten where his mother always had to buy two boxes of the same cereal because Louis refused to share it with his sisters or anyone else for that matter (a habit his mother quickly threatened out of him.) So basically, he didn’t like to share.

Which was why he wasn’t really sure how he was meant to keep from murdering anyone who so much as laid their eyes on Harry tonight. It was bad enough that he knew he would be capturing a lot of attentions and affections tonight and it was bad enough knowing that in advance, but what was worse was that he knew that Harry would no longer be his little secret (he considered Zayn and Niall an extension, or at the very least, a side project, of himself.) His wild, curly hair and his big, green eyes and his tattoos and his mile-long legs and how good they looked in skinny jeans and his broad chest, all of that was about to be taken out of the little vault in the back of Louis’s mind and shared with everyone at that party, who would then share it with anyone who didn’t make it to the party, who would then share it with anyone who would listen probably because if there was one thing the people attending Liam’s party were expecting tonight, it certainly was not that Harry Styles was the fittest human being alive.

And Louis didn’t want to share that. If he could manage it, he’d much rather walk down the halls hand-in-hand with Harry while his hair was still slicked back and his glasses were still broken and he’d compliment him on his sweater vest and everybody would wonder what the fuck was wrong with him but he’d be the one laughing because there was nothing wrong with him. He would just be a normal boy with purple hair and tattoos and piercings who just happened to be dating the school nerd. No big deal.

Because he’d know the truth about Harry, and that wasn’t just his outer beauty, but his inner beauty as well; his sense of humor and his kind heart and his sweetness and intelligence, Harry was just an all-around gem and he wanted the entire world to know it so the entire world could worship Harry Styles like he deserved, but he also wanted to crowd the secret close to himself and hold it to his heart, keep it away from anyone else because it was special. Louis was special because he was the only one who knew Harry as he really was and as selfish as it was, he wasn’t sure he was ready to give up being special quite yet.

But he was pretty much out of time to be special because Harry’s front door was opening and he was stepping out and Louis only saw one foot leave the house before it was dragged back in and Louis craned his neck forward to see and couldn’t fight a grin as he watched Harry’s mother, Anne (who he’d met once or twice when going over her house to work on the project and absolutely adored, because it was obvious where Harry got his heart and good looks from,) was chatting at him rather quickly and meaningfully and he could only make out the shadows of them, but he knew Harry was smirking as he leaned forward and hugged her quickly, pressing a kiss to her forehead. Anne didn’t move for a moment, then she appeared to sigh and wave her hand out the door, telling him to go. Harry gave her one more peck before he finally stepped out of the house and Louis felt his heart melt (he always loved a man that was good to his mother.)

And there Harry was, Louis’s eyes finally able to take him in fully and Christ. He wore skinny jeans again, like always, with those ridiculous yet highly attractive brown suede boots he seemed to love so much (and that Louis, quite honestly, was warming up to,) and he was wearing a white t-shirt underneath a black blazer with the arms rolled up to the elbow so his “I Can’t Change” tattoo was visible (not from that distance, but Louis had memorized it, he knew it was there,) the swallows on his chest just barely peeking out over his collar. He had all of his usual necklaces on and his hear was curly and free, but pushed backwards so it looked windswept and perfect. All in all, he looked ravishing and Louis had to grip the steering wheel as Harry opened the door and slid into the passenger seat to prevent himself from flying over the center console, straddling the younger boy, and snogging him stupid.

“Hey, Louis,” Harry said as he closed the door behind him. He let his eyes trail over Louis quickly and the older tried not to feel self-conscious, which became mildly easier as Harry’s eyes lit up and he smiled hugely. “Your hair looks fantastic,” he noted with his stupid grin and Louis rolled his eyes for something to do other than melt into a pile on the floor of his car.

“Please, it looks like I stuffed me head into a candy floss machine,” he said bitterly and Harry shook his head, of course he did.

“No, it looks awesome! Who doesn’t love candy floss?” he said. “How did you get it to do that?”

He blushed and glued his eyes to the road as they started off. “It may or may not have involved my sister’s curling iron. They promised me it was crucial to the process.”

“Louis, it looks wicked,” Harry assured him, raising a hand up gently, as if to brush an eyelash off of his cheek and Louis actually leaned forward a little and nearly cried when Harry just ended up flipping the curl of his hair instead.

“Hey! Watch the merchandise, Curly, not all of us can just naturally produce the level of volume you can,” he said, flinching backwards when all he really wanted was to lean forward, closer and closer until he fell, like Alice in Wonderland, and got caught in Harry forever.

“Sorry, Lou,” he said, drawing his hand back and grinning at him.

“No problem, lad,” Louis said, eyes not leaving the road for fear of getting distracted by Harry and getting them into a wreck. There was a few moments of silence between them save for the white noise of the radio.

“So, this Liam’s a nice guy?” Harry asked and Louis nodded.

“Yeah, he’s a right cherub, that one,” he replied. “Perfect grades, captain of the footie team, student council president, the whole nine, yet he’s still so nice to everybody, too. S’unnatural.”

“I’ve talked to him once or twice, he wanted to know if he needed to talk to anybody about getting… y’know,” he trailed off, shrugging.

“Getting bullied? Tormented, taunted, tortured?” Louis said bitterly and Harry glanced at him, fighting a smile.

“I suppose.”

“And I reckon you didn’t tell him a damn thing, right?” Louis asked.

 

“You would be correct.”

“But why?” Louis said. “Like, I know why you don’t want to say anything, but what about stopping them from hurting other people? Don’t you worry about that?”

“I always told him about people who were picking on others,” he said seriously. “Like that kid in gym who got everyone to keep pegging the balls at you when you weren’t looking and knocked you down.”

Louis blinked, tore his eyes away from the road and stared at Harry. He remembered that. It had happened for a whole day and nobody, not even the teacher, did anything to stop it. He got a black eye and a split lip and was covered in bruises and his mum had been seconds away from calling the school but he told her not to, that he could handle it. He went into class the next day prepared for the worst, but those boys wouldn’t even look at him, one of the nicer ones even apologized. He had been bewildered and surprised, but was thankful for the change in heart.

“That was you?” Louis asked, heart leaping when Harry nodded again. “I always thought the teacher finally said something.”

“I wish,” Harry snorted. “That dick shouldn’t even have his job if he lets innocent kids get beat on.”

“But that was last semester,” Louis said. “You didn’t even know me yet.”

“I didn’t need to know you to know that you didn’t deserve that,” he said and Louis was glad he was sitting down for how shaky his knees just became. “And now that I’ve met you, I know that you deserve it less than anyone.” He had turned back to the road but he could feel Harry’s cool, green eyes on him. He gulped.

“I deserve it more than you,” he said, hoping Harry heard the apology in those words, all the times he’d seen him getting even worse treatment than he had and doing nothing to prevent it. He could see Harry smiling out of the corner of his eye and he smiled a little, too. “I’m really glad I met you, Harry.”

“I’m glad, too, Louis,” Harry replied and he could feel Harry’s warm hand patting his wrist, resting there for just a moment too long to be friendly and Louis felt his stomach dive as they rounded the corner and Liam’s house came into view because God, he wanted to keep this boy to himself and he wanted to keep him secret for the rest of time.

“Are you ready for your first high school party?” he asked, trying to sound enthusiastic and Harry grinned at him, shrugging.

“Probably,” he said. “But the question is, are you ready for my first high school party?”

No, Louis thought to himself. Never.

 

~ ~ ~

The party was already raging when they got inside, the rooms were packed tightly with teenagers all moving and sliding against each other and not for the first time, Louis felt a bit embarrassed to call these people his colleagues.

He glanced over at Harry, who was looking around the party and looking a little more than out of place. Well, with the activities there. Louis knew his personality and knew that none of this was his kind of thing. He looked perfectly in place with the people at the party, beautiful and gorgeous and young.

Louis led Harry through the house, having been here enough to know where the kitchen was and that that was the safest place to take a newcomer. As they walked, he could already see and feel the eyes that immediately drifted to Harry and his miles-long figure and wild, unkempt hair and handsome face, he wondered if anybody recognized him or if they wondered who the unrealistically attractive boy Louis had brought with him to the party was. He kind of hoped for the later, maybe that way they might back off and assume he’s his date or something (they wouldn’t back off, even if they assumed that, the people here weren’t so gracious. They saw something they liked, they pounced.)

When they got to the kitchen, Louis was unsurprised to find Liam standing in there, chatting with a few people, including Zayn, Niall leaning right up against him, chin on his shoulder. He turned around to properly introduce Harry to Liam, but stopped when he saw the look on Harry’s face. He had expected him to look anxious or uneasy, maybe a little scared. But instead, he looked perfectly content, maybe even comfortable. That was the thing about Harry, Louis supposed, and that he was so envious of. He was so confident in himself and his own skin, he could fit in anywhere. He might not fit in with the people, but comfort wise, he slid into place as easily as a key into a lock.

“Got a lot of new admirers already, mate,” Louis said, though he wasn’t sure what had compelled him to, especially since he had been hoping to steer Harry clear of anybody else the entire evening who wanted anything more than polite conversation. He just hoped there wasn’t too much bitterness in his voice.

“Really?” Harry said, turning around and looking back down the hallway, where there were in fact of few pairs of eyes watching him. “I don’t think so. They probably just recognize me from school and wonder what I’m doing here.”

“More like wonder where you’ve been all their life,” Louis teased, bumping his elbow with Harry’s and honestly, what was he doing? This was not the way to convince your crush to go out with you.

“Hey, Lou!” Louis turned around to find Liam grinning at him, waving and beckoning him over. He waved back and he and Harry walked over to the counter where Liam and the others were standing. As soon as he was within arm’s reach, Liam was pulling him into a tight hug, because that’s just how Liam was (he’d seen him do the same to Zayn once, despite the spikes sticking out of the shoulders of his leather jacket, and he’d said nothing, even though there were visible imprints in his skin where the metal had poked him.) “How are you? I haven’t seen you in a while! You all right?”

“Yeah, I’m good,” he said, hugging back because Liam had that effect on you. “You?”

“I’m fantastic, thanks,” he said, grinning hugely and enormous puppy dog eyes sparkling. He looked up past Louis, blinked as if noticing Harry for the first time. “Oh, hello,” he said politely before dropping his head back down to Louis. “Who’s your friend, Lou?”

“I think you’ve actually met him before, Li,” he said and Liam looked a little uncertain, though he made an effort not to show it. “This is Harry, Harry Styles. He’s in your history class.”

Liam’s jaw dropped as his eyes snapped back to Harry, taking him in. After a second, a look of realization dawned on him.

“Harry! Wow, I didn’t even recognize you, mate!” he said, pulling Harry into a hug of his own, apparently deeming him worthy now that he knew who he was. “Something about you’s different, I think it’s that you’re not wearing glasses.”

Liam was smart and nice and kind, but he was also painfully, painfully oblivious.

“I also, uh, I’m not wearing my hair back,” Harry supplied helpfully and Louis could see a beautiful friendship between the two of them based on being entirely too sweet for their own good and even more naive (but just a friendship.)

“Hi, Harry!” Niall chirped up from Zayn’s side, cheeks a little more flushed than usual and looking just so delighted to be alive, which meant he was probably on his second beer. “You look hot.” Zayn made a face and tried (and failed) to subtly tighten his hold around Niall’s waist and Louis knew if Harry had it in him he’d probably roll his eyes at the gesture.

“Hello, Niall,” Harry replied, smirking a little. “You look nice, too.”

Niall giggled. “Thanks,” he said.

“Hello, Zayn,” Harry said and the darker boy glanced up, nodding at him shortly (he was a bit immature when he got possessive.) “You look very nice, as well.”

“Oh my God, doesn’t he?” Niall suddenly piped up, throwing himself over Zayn even more if it was possible. The older of the two’s eyes widened in surprise, hands flying to Niall’s waist just in time to hold him steady. “I nearly cried when he picked me up, he looked so good.” Niall threw his arms around Zayn’s neck and they swayed on the spot a little. Zayn’s eyes were still a little startled but he was smiling and blushing a little as Niall whispered “My pretty Zaynie” into his ear over and over. He threw a half-grateful, half-apologetic look at Harry, who nodded at him.

“You’re such a giver,” Louis said, watching as Zayn pulled back a little to whisper in Niall’s ear. “Honestly, you just spread so much joy.”

“I try,” Harry said.

“Harry, this is Jesy, she was my partner for the history project,” Liam spoke up, gesturing to a pretty girl with beautiful curves and a huge smile. She was looking away at first, talking to someone else, and when she turned, her smile dropped a little.

“Wait, Harry Styles?” she said, Liam’s words just catching up with her.

“That’s me,” Harry said cheerily, sticking his hand out to her.

“It’s. You- wow,” she said, completely ignoring Harry’s outstretched hand. “I’ll be back, give me one second.”

She scurried off, a somewhat impressive feat in the shoes she was wearing, and Louis watched her go, then turned back to Harry, who was staring at his hand thrust out at nothing, as if unsure what to do with it, then turned it around to shake his own hand.

This boy is going to be the death of me, Louis thought miserably as a huge smile broke out on his face.

It was a few minutes before Jesy was coming back, dragging behind her a string of three other girls, all of them looking various levels of tipsy.

“See?” she was saying, pointing to where Harry was still standing in the center of the kitchen. “That’s Harry Styles!”

“What?” one of them, a blonde one with pale skin and a nose ring scoffed, looking wholly unimpressed and unconvinced, probably the most sober out of all of them. “No, there’s no way that that,” she pointed a long, white finger with dangerously sharp nails at Harry, eyes sizing him up and down. “is that dweeb.”

Louis felt a twinge of anger spark underneath his skin but he bit his tongue, didn’t want to cause drama and ruin this for Harry.

“Maybe he’s a gangledopper!” the tiniest and most obviously drunk of the girls, her enormous bow thrown askew in her dark hair, giggled. “You know, the twinny thing!”

“But it does kinda look like him,” one of the others, Louis recognized her as Leigh-Anne, hiccuped. She stumbled forward, reaching up and Harry leaned backwards a little, not sure what to expect, but softened when she just dragged his hair backwards with her fingers until it lay flat on his head (Louis tried not to scream with frustration that someone else got to run their fingers through that hair before he did.) Once Harry’s hair was pulled back, the giggly one gasped.

“N-No, wait! It is him!” she squeaked, jumping up and down in excitement for what reason, they didn’t know. “He’s hot!”

“I told you!” Jesy said and the other girls gawked at Harry, utterly blindsided. Leigh-Anne’s hand was still holding Harry’s head back, a little harder than necessary and bending it at an awkward angle, and by the look on his face, Louis could tell he was probably cramping up.

“Yes, this is Harry Styles, well done,” Louis said, throwing an arm around Harry and stepping him to the side, out of the girls’ circle around him. “Isn’t he a peach?” He pinched one of Harry’s cheeks, fingers tingling when they ran over the divot of his dimple.

“What happened to you?” the blonde one asked. “This is like some total transformation shit like the ending of Grease.”

“Are you trying to impress your Danny Zuko?” the little one piped up.

“Um, no,” Harry said, blushing under the scrutiny. “I just felt like dressing up?”

“Well, you should feel like it always,” Leigh-Anne said. “I could get lost in these curls.” She reached her hand up to tangle in Harry’s locks again but Louis was too quick for her, dodging both of them out of the way before she could make contact.

“Shit, I made fun of Cher all this time because she said Styles was probably gorgeous under the gel and glasses,” the blonde girl said, snapping her gum thoughtfully. She glanced up at Harry. “I’ll be back in one sec.”

She walked briskly out of the room and returned a moment later with Cher, her fiery hair bouncing in playful curls as she walked. When she was in the doorway, Perrie pointed at Harry and it wasn’t even a whole second before the girl was spinning around and swatting her friend on the arm, screeching “I told you!”

“Looks like you’re gaining quite the fanbase, Stretch,” Louis reported drily, watching as the girls whispered amongst themselves, casting sideways glances at Harry every so often. “I imagine they’ll call themselves ‘Stylers’.”

“I’m more partial to ‘Harriettes’ myself,” Harry replied, without missing a beat, and Louis wondered if he could secure his spot as number one fan if he hauled Harry up onto the counter and devoured him in front of his fan club.

~ ~ ~

In the kitchen, Harry and Louis had tried to have a normal conversation with their friends in the kitchen, their group unfortunately having increased in size as the same girls as before decided to join them and giggle obnoxiously at everything that came out of Harry’s delicious mouth (not that Louis himself wasn’t hanging off of every word, but that was different.)

Not only was the constant tittering bad enough, every time someone else tried to start a conversation, one of the girls would interrupt them and turn their attention back to Harry. The taller boy was looking horribly embarrassed and apologetic and Louis felt for him, he really did. It wasn’t his fault his face made girls act so horribly rude, but what could you do?

It reached a head when Liam had asked how Louis’s show had gone the other day, apologized for not being able to make it, and Louis was just about to answer when one of the girls shrieked loudly as a new song started playing in the other room.

“Oh, I love this song!” she squealed. “I want to dance, Harry, come dance with me!”

“Um, I’m afraid I’m not much of a dancer, love,” he said. “I become a danger to myself and others.”

The girl threw her head back, cackling with laughter. “Oh, I’ms sure you’re not that bad! Please?”

The other girls in the group nodded, pleading with him to come along and even going so far as to pull on his lapels a little to try and coax him out.

“Maybe later, okay?” he said. “Go have fun, yeah?”

The girls pouted but eventually went away and Harry was left in the kitchen with Louis, a bewildered look on his face.

“Having fun?” Louis asked, sipping his cup of Diet Coke bitterly and wishing it would get him drunk because he was far too sober for this.

“Is this what Beyoncé feels like?” Harry replied and Louis nearly snorted the drink in his hand. Harry Styles was literally going to kill him. Once he’d better composed himself, Louis straightened up and turned to Harry.

“Probably,” he shrugged. “You know, if you want to dance, you can. You’re sober, so you’re automatically at least eight percent better at dancing than most people here. Except for maybe Danielle.”

“Definitely not Danielle,” Harry nodded in agreement.

“Well, okay, but you can still have fun and suck at dancing,” he said. “Zayn does it all the time.” If Zayn wasn’t busy making out with Niall in the corner, he was sure he’d flip him the bird.

“No, I love to dance and all, I just, like, don’t want to go out and dance by myself, you know?” he swirled his orange soda around in his cup for a moment meditatively. “I don’t suppose you-”

“Not a chance, Curls,” Louis said, rolling his eyes and trying hard to convince himself that he hadn’t just shut down an invitation to actually dance with Harry, but even if he did, he was really for the sake of the relationship. No one besides Zayn ever needed to see him attempt to have rhythm and no one besides Zayn ever would. “Thanks for asking, though. I’m sure you can find another partner, if you want.” (He’d rather he didn’t, though.)

“Well, I’m not especially trying to get out there and embarrass myself. I’d just rather that I have someone else to do it with if I do,” he said. “And who better with than you?”

Louis felt all of the breath get pretty much steamrolled out of him because he remembered telling Zayn once that if he were to have a type, it would just be someone he could go and embarrass himself with and not care and it was like God had taken Harry and put him on a silver plater drizzled with chocolate and went, “Here you go,” and Louis felt very overwhelmed by that.

~ ~ ~

As the party went on, Harry and Louis migrated from one room to the next to try and find a place to hang out and chat and maybe sway a little to the trashy and horrendously catchy top forty hit playing on the stereo, but every room they walked into, Harry was immediately bombarded with stares and then subsequently a million questions and new admirers.

 

Some of the girls didn’t realize who Harry was when they asked him to dance or offered him a drink, some did and were reluctant but in the end all too willing to give him attention, and some were just too drunk to distinguish between the two. Regardless, word traveled fast around the party and as soon as Harry entered a new room, it was as if a new swarm of girls was already waiting for him.

And despite his rising and simmering jealousy, Louis was kind of happy, from an outsider perspective. Harry deserved every bit of adoration he was receiving, even if it was shallow and superficial and didn’t even begin to explore the depth of adoration that he deserved (Louis had given this a lot of thought.)

But this feeling was widely overpowered by the feeling of jealousy and annoyance that was bubbling just at the surface. He wanted to push these girls away, take Harry and hide him away because they would never appreciate Harry like he would and as serial killer-y as that sounded, he knew it was true.

 

And every word that came out of his or Harry’s mouth was cut short by another girl (and the occasional guy) asking Harry to come over and hang with them or dance with them and quite frankly, it was grating on Louis’s last nerve. Honestly, he thought he’d prepared himself for this, for the complete lack of privacy and respect that would come with being around Harry and his rockstar good looks, but he wasn’t used to it, he was used to having such easy, flowing conversations with Harry and all of his stupid anecdotes and intellectual ideas and to have those precious words halted every time his lips formed a new one was horribly frustrating.

And it was around the sixth time Harry tried to start the same story that Louis finally had it, growling quietly and getting to his feet.

“I’m gonna go to the loo real quick, okay?” he said, not even waiting for an answer before trudging off and honestly, he should feel bad, fuck that, he should feel horrible for leaving Harry alone like that, but he honestly couldn’t take it anymore, he couldn’t take how these people felt like they could just stick their nose in Harry’s business, interrupt him like he or who he was talking to wasn’t important enough to care about being courteous to them and frankly, it was a lot to bear. He knew it wasn’t Harry’s fault, but he cursed him anyway, cursed his devilish good looks and big heart and the way he’d finagled his way right into Louis’s ribcage and built himself a cozy, little home there where he just sat around reading books and listening to indie bands and no one could bother him and he kept warm by Louis’s heart, beating fast and hot, right outside his front door.

He got to the bathroom, thankful that no one was a) puking or b) making out in there this time, and stared at himself in the mirror, at his flushing cheeks from a combination of anger, shyness, and increased body contact with other humans. He turned on the tap and splashed cold water in his face, glad to have outgrown his eyeliner phase and could throw water on himself at his own will (freshman year was a strange time for him.)

He didn’t want to stay in there long, he didn’t want to leave Harry to the wolves for too long, in fact, as the seconds ticked by, the worse he felt about leaving Harry all alone, with people he didn’t really know but who all wanted a piece of him suddenly. Wow, what a dick he was.

He stepped out of the bathroom and tried not to too obviously speed-walk down the hall back to where he and Harry had been before, only to find that the curly-haired boy was nowhere in sight. Shit.

He walked around the room, checking in the throngs of people chatting or drinking or shrieking with laughter for the curly-haired bloke, but found no sign on him.

He checked the next room and found nothing, then the next, and again, nothing.

Finally, he stepped back into the kitchen and, again, finding nothing, made to walk back out of the room when someone grabbed his arm and yanked him back into the center of the room. When he turned around, he found Liam grinning at him widely enough to be drunk but he knew Liam well enough to know that that was just his sober, overly giddy face.

“Lou, come here, you have to hear the story Josh was just telling me!” he said, pulling him over and suddenly Josh was apparently retelling his story, slurring through it and stopping every few seconds to stare off into space or perhaps remember a detail, Louis wasn’t sure, he wasn’t really paying attention, all he really cared about was finding Harry and making sure he was safe, who knows what could be happening, some of the girls could be harassing him or some guys could be picking on him because, who knows, he was moving in on their girls or something, whatever. All he knew was that every second he spent listening to this painfully long story was a second Harry could be needing him.

But the story just went on and on and he forced a smile and nodded every time Liam dissolved into giggles, which was often, and he wasn’t sure he’d ever heard such a long story in his life and suddenly ten minutes had passed and he still hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Harry in the last twenty minutes and he was getting really anxious.

“That’s great, mate, really funny, I’ll talk to you later, yeah?” Louis suddenly cut in, patting Josh’s arm and walking away, not even sure if he was finished his story yet at all and not particularly caring.

Louis stalked out of the kitchen, sticking his head in every room he passed then going upstairs, wondering if maybe he’d gone up there for some peace and quiet (and definitely not for any other reason, surely.) He peeked in some of the rooms, keeping his eyes covered except to peek quickly and was relieved that the rooms were all empty. When he got to the room at the end of the hall, he had given up trying to shield his eyes, really just sticking his head in to be thorough in his search, and immediately regretting it when he did.

“Fuck, shit! Are you serious?!” he squawked, wrenching his head back out, face bright red and very worried that he might be ill all over Liam’s nice carpet. “Jesus, Zayn, you ever heard of a lock?”

There were multiple, successive bangs and shuffling and muffled groaning on the other side of the door before it was pulled open and Zayn stepped out, cheeks darker than Louis’s, lips looking significantly more bruised than before, and his hair sticking out in every direction. His zipper was undone and shirt was rumpled and Louis might be mistaken, but he thought it might’ve been on backwards.

“You ever hear of knocking?” he retorted indignantly, just as Niall emerged from the room behind him, just pulling on his shirt and sporting several dark hickies all over his neck and upper chest.

“Savages,” Louis spat, rolling his eyes and trying not to gag when Niall started wiping at his mouth. “I hope I’m not around when you tell poor Liam what you were doing on his bed.”

“I’m sure he’ll get over it,” Zayn huffed. “Was there something you wanted?”

“Besides years of therapy?” Louis snarked and Niall, of course, even in his tipsy and mortified state, snorted. “Yes, have you seen Harry?”

“Not recently,” Zayn said, trying to sort out his hair and eventually giving up. “Why, you haven’t lost him, have you?”

“How do you lose a Harry?” Niall asked blearily from where he started to drape himself over Zayn again. “He’s like the sasquatch but hotter and with better hair.”

“I didn’t lose him, you twats,” Louis snapped. “I’ve just misplaced his exact location.”

“Well, better go find him before the girls rip him to shreds,” Zayn said, smirking and winking at him and Louis scoffed.

“Shut up, you tosser,” he said before turning on his heel and walking away. “And do your trousers up, Malik, you’ll out someone’s eye out.”

He stomped down the stairs, becoming just plain irritated now with the disappearance of his friend and he was just about to stalk back into the kitchen to ask Liam, who would definitely still be coherent enough to give him some answers when he saw a head of wayward curls out of the corner of his eye and he froze in the doorway of the living room, turning his head and. Oh.

Those were definitely Harry’s wild locks that he’d seen, but that was the only visible part of him from the angle that Louis was standing at. The rest of him was hidden by the figure of a willowy, curvy blonde, her long hair falling down her back and starkly contrasting her little, black dress. Louis recognized her, she had been in his english class or french class or one of his classes, he didn’t remember and couldn’t bring himself to care because even from here he could tell that she was nearly pressed up against Harry, arms wrapped around his neck and hips moving dangerously. Hips that were framed by two massive hands, hands Louis knew very well and suddenly his stomach dropped just in time to match his world crashing down around him.

The girl’s head was tilted up just a bit and Louis didn’t have to be a genius like Harry to know what was going on and there were random catcalls all over the room directed at Harry and that pretty girl and Louis had never felt so hollow. His throat closed up so quickly it shocked him when he couldn’t take in any more breath and he felt like his knees would snap in half and he’d fall any second with how weak they felt.

Harry’s movements were sort of awkward, out of time and not at all confident, but his entire being was awkward and Louis knew he would get it eventually, but he didn’t plan to stay around and watch and wait for him to.

He turned and ran away, out of the room, out of the door, trying to see where he was going across the lawn through the tears suddenly welling up in his eyes and he narrowly avoided the group of kids smoking hookah on the grass as he ran to his car.

He was stupid. Stupid for falling in love with Harry, stupid for thinking that he was any different than any other person just because he knew what it was like to be an outcast. He was stupid for falling for the school nerd and stupid for thinking he could ever like him back.

He was stupid for thinking that an amazing, smart, sweet, funny, charming, gorgeous boy like Harry could ever like a grumpy, sarcastic, short, dumb, punk-ass kid like him. Especially when he could like pretty girls who would dance with him when Louis wouldn’t.

 

God, how could he ever think this could work? He hadn’t even known if Harry was even gay this whole time yet he was more than ready to grab him and kiss him and Jesus, he could have ruined everything. To be honest, though, it didn’t really feel like there was much left to ruin.

He made him home, somehow in one piece and he kept his head down as he walked past the living room where his mother and sisters were all watching TV (it was only 10:00,) and ran up the stairs, waiting until the door was closed behind him to sink to the floor and finally let a sob break its way out of his throat.

It was just one night and it was just one girl and it was just one kiss but it still tore Louis up inside like nothing he’d ever felt, like someone had taken a spoon and slowly carved him out until he was hollow. He had become too dependent in what Harry said, that he didn’t pull random girls or keep their numbers or dance with them or cared about them just because they suddenly cared about him. He had heard those words and taken them to heart, even as he was reluctant to, just because they were words that he wanted to hear.

 

And even so, he wasn’t even surprised by what had happened. Harry had never had attention like that before. Of course he was going to love it, someone like Harry, who has never had someone adore him like those girls seemed to, and it wasn’t even like he blamed him. Harry deserved all of the pretty girls and the guys slapping him on the back and the sudden rush of attention and affection that he was liable to get. Sure, he had told Louis that he wasn’t like that, didn’t determine his worth by that, but how could he have ever understood the feeling of acceptance if he’d never had it?

And the worst part was, Louis didn’t even feel betrayed. Harry hadn’t promised him anything and didn’t owe him anything, he was just the recipient of Louis’s unrequited love and that was not his fault. So he could go and kiss any girl or guy he wanted and he was not at all responsible for what it did to Louis. If Louis was completely honest, he was almost happy for Harry if that girl was what he wanted. At the end of the day, all he wanted was what Harry wanted.

No, that was a lie. At the end of the day, all he wanted was Harry but he couldn’t have him, was stupid to think that he could, really.

Louis may have been stupid, but he wasn’t dumb. Harry and him would’ve never fit. Well, they would have, but Louis wouldn’t have fit into Harry’s life. He remembered how Anne had looked at him when he first walked into her house (she liked him now, it was just the initial shock that everyone experiences) and could imagine the look on her face if Harry ever introduced him as his boyfriend to her. She probably would say he’s a bad influence, didn’t want Harry hanging around someone like him. He imagined the kids at school, taunting Harry even worse because now he was holding hands with that punk freak. He imagined the teachers whispering amongst themselves, asking each other what the hell was wrong with Harry Styles, why that perfect, little angel was associating with Louis. They would mutter about how they were sad to see another rising star fall to shit because he fell in with the wrong people.

But Louis wasn’t the wrong people. He may be easily irritated and irrational and sarcastic and bitchy but he knew for a fact that not a single one of those things would rub off on Harry. In fact, Harry had made him better. He wished that the teachers would see them together and think about how Louis wouldn’t drag Harry down, but bring him up.

But he would drag Harry down, he realized miserably. He would, he wasn’t the fun, outgoing type like Harry, he wasn’t smart and he couldn’t match Harry’s intellect, wouldn’t be able to have intelligent conversations with him about their classes. Harry would get even more stares, more jibes, more sneers, because Louis wasn’t the type of person someone like Harry should be around.

 

And Louis knew that somewhere, in the back of his head, he’d known this. He just wished he’d realized it before he’d let himself fall for Harry, fall for real for the first time in his young life, and before he’d naively let himself think it was possible. It felt like he’d jumped out of an airplane without a parachute and knew it, but still expected the landing to go all right.

He pushed himself up from the floor, the ache in his bum and back telling him he’d sat there for much too long, but he didn’t particularly care.

He took his phone out of his pocket, grimacing when he saw a text from Zayn flashing on the screen.

Hey, did I just see your car leave? Aren’t you Harry’s ride?

He had to gulp around the lump in his throat at the sight of his name. He blinked rapidly before reading the next one.

Everything okay?

No, not really but don’t worry about it.

Can you just make sure he gets home okay?

Because he could be mad and heartbroken but Harry still held every corner of his heart and he wouldn’t be able to forgive himself if something had happened to him.

Sure of course but Lou what’s wrong?

It’s nothing I’ll see you later okay?

Louis wait

Louis seriously what’s wrong?

He didn’t wait for another text to come in, just turned off his phone and threw himself face forward onto his bed, not bothering to wipe his wet face beforehand and letting his tears soak into his blankets.

He shouldn’t have left Harry alone when he was getting pissy at the girls. He should’ve stuck with him, brought him somewhere else, hell, he probably could’ve just asked if they could leave early and get away from all those people. Maybe things would’ve gone differently. Maybe not.

Either way, Louis just hoped he would forget about it in the morning.

~ ~ ~

He didn’t.

The second he woke up from what was accumulatively probably two hours of sleep, it was like his chest had expanded then collapsed the very next second, heart thrumming painfully with the memory of the night before, Harry’s big hands on hips that weren’t his, neck wrapped with arms that weren’t his, lips touching lips that weren’t his.

He sucked in a shaky breath, throat sore and dry from the night before and he had a headache that for once in his life he wished was the result of a hangover.

Louis turned himself over in bed, facing both walls then the ceiling, then lying facedown on his stomach then back at the wall again. He had no interest in any of them, but he had even less interest in moving and interacting today so he stayed in bed, getting up only to eat and go to the bathroom. His mother called him once or twice from downstairs and asked him to help with laundry or dishes and he forced himself to do that, because he didn’t want to have fighting with his mum tacked onto the list of things that sucked about his life right now.

He knew she could see that something was wrong in his face, but she didn’t comment on it and he was grateful for that. Maybe he’d fill her in later. Probably not.

He kept his phone off the whole day, didn’t want to see the text or hear the voicemail when Harry told him all about this amazing girl he’d met at the party. Maybe he’d even thank Louis for bringing him, for making it all possible and he’d probably not be able to stop himself from getting sick all over himself.

He felt bad for leaving Harry at the party and he honestly wanted to apologize, but he knew Harry was going to be really, really sweet about it and he couldn’t take that right now, lemon juice sweeter than honey poured into the wound where his heart had been sliced open.

He’d have to talk to Harry eventually, they had to give a presentation on Monday but at least after that, he could maybe get some space from him. Though he didn’t want to.

And it was with stunningly painful force that Louis realized that school would probably never be the same again. Harry had seen what it was like to be one of the beautiful people and had probably loved it. He would show up in his hot person clothes and he would have at least a dozen girls permanently attached to his hip until graduation and he’d never get a chance to talk to him or see him and soon after he’d probably stop texting him and talking to him and Louis would just fade into a purple-haired speck in the distance. Harry would forget about him, leave him behind for people that saw his new appearance and deemed him worthwhile to try and get to know. And then they’d see his wonderful personality and sense of humor and wise way of looking at life and they’d love him even more. Not more than Louis loved him, but more nonetheless.

 

And the whole idea, the fading, the new clothes, the new Harry, the fact that he’d probably never have Harry make dumb faces at him in history or chew painfully slow on a banana during lunch, sent him wailing into his pillow with new fervor.

He didn’t want Monday to come. Ever.

But he also wanted this day to end more than anything.

~ ~ ~

The next day, Sunday, Louis’s mother asked him to keep his phone on and close by, she was going out with Lottie and Fizzy and he needed to watch the twins and she would text him about going to lunch or something and there was nothing Jay Tomlinson loathed more than when her son didn’t answer his phone, so he had no choice but to turn it on.

Almost immediately, his inbox was flooded with messages, as he’d expected, some from Zayn, a few from Niall, but forty-three out of the fifty messages he’d received, were from Harry. Some were from the night of the party:

Hey I can’t find you did you go somewhere?

Zayn told me you left the party are you okay?

I’m getting a ride with him so don’t worry about me but where are you?

Louis please answer

Louis come on I’m freaking out

At least let me know you got home all right Lou

Zayn told me he knows you got home thank God

You’re probably sleeping now but text me in the morning okay I want to make sure you’re all right

Don’t scare me like that please x

I’ll talk to you in the morning Lou

Some were from the day after:

Hey

Louis???

Are you okay?

Why did you leave the party early did something happen?

 

Did someone say something to you?

Did I say something to you?

Was it me?

Louis seriously did I do something wrong?

I don’t remember saying anything that would hurt your feelings but if I did I’m so so sorry

I went looking for you after you went to the bathroom but couldn’t find you

Then Zayn told me you went home

Did I say something?

Louis come on I’m really freaking because I can’t remember if I said anything to hurt you

But like I’d never hurt you okay?

If I said anything I definitely didn’t mean it to hurt you

Don’t ignore me please

Louis please answer I kind of deserve an explanation for why I was stranded at a party with people I didn’t know

Not that I’m angry

I’m not

I’m just like kinda frustrated and worried because that’s not like you because you said we’d go home together too

Okay I guess I won’t get anything out of you today so I’ll leave you alone. But like maybe tomorrow? I miss talking to you

Like I know it’s only been a day but

Yeah so just in case it was me I’m sorry

(Louis felt ill because how could Harry ever think a single word that came out of his mouth could ever hurt Louis? He’d been nothing but kind to him since the day they met and Louis desperately wished he’d returned the favor. But he still couldn’t do it, it was still too raw and he didn’t want to engage.)

And finally, some from this morning:

Okay i’ve been thinking about it and yeah you kind of owe me an explanation

I’m not still mad but like come on Louis

You left me alone to fend for myself at that party and then you left without telling me

And I was freaking out because i didn’t know where you went or with who or if you were okay and like seriously Lou you know how I worry

Just at least tell me someone didn’t bully you

Louis seriously don’t push me away

I really just want to make sure you’re okay and I think you should at least text me and let me know you’re alive

Or okay

I really want to know you’re okay Louis please

Don’t ignore me Louis!

I know we weren’t really conventional friends when this first started but I thought by now you actually trusted me enough to tell me things and stuff

Louis please

Louis could feel his phone vibrating in his hand but couldn’t really see the messages through the tears blurring the screen and he tossed the phone away, dropping his head into his hand and letting his shoulders shake.

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that he’d found this beautiful, caring, sweet, smart, funny guy who liked the same music he did and didn’t care about his piercings or his tattoos and had fallen desperately in love with him and he was none the wiser. And it wasn’t fair that he was being so incredibly sweet and kinda to him after being such a dick before when he didn’t deserve and when he was trying to forget why he liked him so much.

He knew it wasn’t fair to Harry or right, but he just couldn’t look at it anymore, couldn’t let himself believe Harry would continued to care.

So he sent a quick text to his mum telling her that he’d left his charger at Zayn’s and that his phone was quickly dying and to just call the house phone if she needed anything. He knew that his sister had the same phone and thus, the same charger, but he didn’t really care and hoped his mother wouldn’t notice. He turned off his phone and buried it deep into his sheets and covers, wishing that it would make it disappear, like a magic trick, and take the last three days with it.

~ ~ ~

He seriously, seriously considered not going to school Monday. He was miserable, he knew his eyes were purple and bruising with lack of sleep, he was scruffy because he couldn’t be fucked to shave this weekend at all, his hair was greasy and he probably smelled, and oh, yeah, the boy of his dreams would probably be someone completely different when he walked into school, with a new girl on his arm and not a thought spared for Louis.

But they were presenting that god awful history project today, that stupid piece of shit assignment that was the cause of all this in the first place, and he knew how important grades were to Harry (and quite honestly, if he didn’t present it, he would fail the class, but that was more secondary) and he couldn’t let him down. After all this, he couldn’t bear to make Harry frown.

 

So he threw himself out of bed and trudged downstairs, planning to go to school in what he’d gone to sleep in, until his mother screeched at him to get his arse back upstairs and take a god-damn shower, she’d had enough of his moping.

So he went upstairs, took a shower, shaved, brushed his teeth, basically made himself look like a normal human being. There wasn’t much he could do about his sunken, bloodshot eyes and hollow-looking face but it was a start.

Once he was in the car, he’d decided firmly that he would avoid Harry all day until history. He’d take the long way to class, he’d eat lunch by himself in the bathroom, he’d do whatever it took, he just did not want to see Harry because a) he’d see him looking gorgeous and surrounded by people more beautiful than Louis and b) he’d then be forced to talk and share feelings and he’d rather attach his eyebrow piercing to a truck and have it drive in the opposite direction than do that.

So he walked into school with his head down, hood up, and speed walked straight to his first class, not even stopping by his locker because he knew Harry would try and catch him there.

He let his eyes dart from side to side every so often, looking for that familiar head of hair, that laugh, that voice, anything because as much as he was trying to avoid Harry, he missed him pathetically and he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to avoid him and heal when he longed to see him after two days.

He was finally down the hall of his classroom and thought he was in the clear, finally allowed himself to look up and was shocked and appalled to find none other than Harry Styles standing right by the door.

But it wasn’t the Harry Styles he was expecting. There were no tight jeans and flannels and low fitting white shirts that showed off the twin swallows resting right on his collarbones, there were no contacts forced into green eyes or slimmer, not broken glasses slid onto his nose. The other thing that he saw that he had expected to see was the unkempt hair, sticking out wildly in all directions.

No, Harry was his Harry. Horrific red sweater vest pulled over his white shirt, bow tie wrapped proudly around his color, khakis just a little too short on his mile-long legs and showing off his argyle socks. His glasses were thick, held together only by a yellowing piece of tape. There was not a single girl hovering around him, though as people passed by him they gave him strange looks and whispered to one another, spreading the news that he was actually wildly attractive and wondering why he’d decided to give it all up. What a waste. (Except not to Louis, seeing this Harry for some reason lit a fire in his stomach and made him want to hurl himself into Harry’s arms and never let go because he still didn’t change.)

But Harry was there, standing by the door, eyes running up and down the halls, searching for Louis. And he found him. His eyes snapped up and saw him and though he didn’t move, Louis knew he’d been his intended target. He didn’t make a move at all, so Louis tried to walk forward, tried to duck into his classroom without making contact and maybe it would all go away but no such luck.

The second Louis was right by the door, Harry stepped in front of him.

“Harry, I have to go to class,” he mumbled, not looking up at him.

“We have to talk,” Harry said sternly but Louis shook his head.

“Not now, Haz, I have-” but before he could protest anymore, Harry’s huge hand was wrapped around Louis’s tiny wrist and was dragging him away from the classroom, down the hall, through the throngs of people staring as they went.

“Harry, what are you doing? We have class, let me go!” he struggled against the younger’s hold on him but it was perfectly pointless and he knew it. “Don’t you have a lesson to be at?”

“We’re bunking off,” Harry said shortly and Louis thought maybe he had been a bad influence on Harry after all.

Harry continued to drag him down the halls, past the people filing into class, kept dragging him after the bell had already rung. He yanked him down the hall until they got to the stairs in the far corner of the school, behind which there was a little niche where they were hidden from people who might be walking by.

Jesus, maybe Harry was going to kill him.

When they were safely out of view, Harry dropped Louis’s hand and turned on him, the closest thing Louis had ever seen to a glare on him plastered on his face. He had dark circles under his eyes, usual sparkling irises looking dull. His hair was wild, obviously not for a change in pace but because he’d run his fingers through it so many times and he was too distressed to fix it. And it was still so, so attractive.

“Do you want to tell me why you’ve been ignoring me all weekend?” Harry snapped and Louis looked away, shrugging.

“I haven’t,” he murmured weakly and Harry scoffed.

“Bullshit, Louis!” he spat. “I’ve been texting you nonstop all weekend to try and maybe find out if you weren’t dead in a gutter somewhere and-”

“Okay, obviously I wasn’t dead in a gutter somewhere, Harry,” Louis said impatiently.

“You could’ve been for all I knew! All I knew was that we were supposed to go to and leave the party together and suddenly you were gone, I was stranded, and I had no idea why,” Harry said.

“I made sure Zayn got you home,” Louis said lamely and Harry looked stricken.

“That’s not the point, Louis! This isn’t about how I got home! This is about you leaving without telling me and making me absolutely sick with worry until I knew you were okay! This is about why you did that and then didn’t talk to me all weekend,” he noticed that Louis flinched when he yelled and he took a deep breath, eyes shit. His voice was quiet when he spoke again, careful. “Sorry. I was just… It hurt. I thought we were sort of friends now.”

“We are, Harry, we are,” Louis rushed to say. “Not ‘sort of’, we are.”

“Then why did you not tell me you left?” Harry asked. “Did I do something?”

“No,” Louis replied. “Just didn’t feel like staying anymore.”

“Then we could’ve left together!” Harry said. “I wouldn’t have minded! You should have come found me!”

“Well, I did,” Louis said bitterly, looking away and frowning.

“What?” Harry said, more confused than annoyed now.

“I fucking went to find you, Harry, and I found you grinding with some girl,” he sneered. “And you looked like you were having fun so I left you to it. Didn’t want to pull you away.”

“What? I never danced with any-” realization dawned on his face and he looked down at Louis in distress. “No, Louis, no, I wasn’t dancing with her, she-”

“I know what I saw, Harry,” Louis growled and honestly, this wasn’t fair to him, Louis had no right to be doing anything like this, interrogating him. “I saw you kissing her in front of the entire room, how everyone was cheering for you. Cheers, by the way.”

“No, Louis, not ‘cheers’!” Harry said. “I didn’t kiss her!”

“Harry, I’m not st-”

“I know you’re not stupid, Louis, I’ve been telling you that for weeks now,” Harry suddenly shouted. “Now will you please listen to me?” Louis paused, surprised by the sudden outburst, then nodded.

“Okay, that girl came up to me and she was completely trashed, okay? She couldn’t even stand up straight and I was holding her up-”

“Oh, please.”

“I’m serious, Louis!” Harry said. “I was holding her up but she was still trying to dance and she kept trying to kiss me, like, on my face and stuff. I didn’t let her though.”

“Well, why didn’t you?” Louis asked. “You had all those girls falling in your lap all night long, why didn’t you go with any of them? Don’t lie to me and tell me you didn’t think about it.”

“I didn’t!”

“Why not?”

“Because I already told you, I’m not that type of guy!” Harry said. “I don’t date girls-”

“I know, I know, ‘I don’t date girls who give me their numbers when I don’t know them, who I just met, who yadda yadda.’ Just give it a rest, please, Harry. You’re noble, I get it,” Louis said and Harry stared at him, confused.

“What?” Harry asked.

“I know you want to date a girl who you know and who knows you and all but don’t try to tell me you didn’t at least consider one of the girls at the party,” Louis said.

“I didn’t,” Harry said flatly.

“And why is that?!” Louis bit, getting tired of talking circles.

“Because I don’t like girls, Louis!” Harry said and oh. Oh. Oh.

“You, um. You what?” Louis said, not sure he believed his ears.

“I’m gay, Louis,” Harry said. “I thought you knew that.”

“I didn’t.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

 

There was a stretch of awkward silence between them as Louis tried to avoid Harry’s gaze to the point of gouging his own eyes out. And this was a new development and his heart was pounding but he tried not to be too happy, it still didn’t mean what he wanted it to.

“I thought you kinda knew, like, because you asked me to the party, you know?” Harry said shyly and Louis’s head snapped up.

“Wait, was the party a date?” he asked and Harry glanced up.

 

“Was it the party not a date?”

“I-I don’t know, I, like, left room for discretion, you know?” he said sheepishly, head down, not really sure where to go from here.

“So, um,” Louis starts after a few moments of silence. “Why aren’t you, um. Why aren’t you wearing your other clothes?”

“What?”

“Your, like, flannel and jeans and stuff,” he said and he could hear Harry sigh from above him.

“Because I don’t wear that stuff to school?” he said. “I thought we already had this conversation.”

“We did,” Louis said, still looking away. “But I thought that maybe since, you know, everyone was so different to you at the party, you might see, like…” he finally looked up and saw Harry staring at him like he’d gone mad. Maybe he had.

 

“Louis, if anything, that party convinced me to never even think about dressing up like that for school unless I wanted to,” he said, pointing to himself. “I don’t want friends or girls hanging off of me because of the way I dress and the way I look. I don’t want people who weren’t nice to me to suddenly want to be my friend because I look different than before. Why would you ever think I wanted that?” His eyes were searching and almost hurt and Louis wished he could take that look away, bottle it up, and throw it away.

“I don’t know,” Louis said, shrugging again. “I just, I thought maybe you’d see what it was like to not have people throw food at you and call you names and stuff and I thought maybe you’d want that for yourself.” He felt the back of his eyes pinching and he sighed. “I thought maybe you’d want all those people being nice to you for a change.”

“I don’t care about them, Lou,” Harry tried to stress and Louis groaned.

“I know that, Harry! I know you don’t care about them, but I thought maybe you would after you saw how much nicer it could be on the other side. And I know you hate the thought of impressing anybody so people treat you better, but. I don’t know, I just thought you’d want that.”

“I don’t want any of that, Louis, really,” he said. “There’s only one thing I want.”

“And what’s that?” Louis sighed.

“You.”

Louis’s head snapped up so fast it cracked in a rather unpleasant way but he couldn’t even care, he was too busy trying to stop his breathing so there was no background noise while he replayed the last few seconds over in his head.

“Me?” he asked shakily and Harry nodded.

“Why do you think I dragged you here, made you bunk off your first class and talk to me? Just because you didn’t text me for two days. Sorry about that, by the way,” Louis rolled his eyes at him, showing him just how much he didn’t care, and he smirked. “Uh, yeah, though. I was kind of going crazy all weekend because you left and I didn’t know why and you weren’t texting me and I thought you were mad at me and I can’t really stand the thought of you being mad at me, you know?

“So I was going crazy all weekend but you kind of always drive me crazy, like. Since forever,” Harry said, cheeks flushing in time with Louis’s own. “And I was so, so excited when you and I got put together as partners because I was kind of watching you from afar for a long time and I know that sounds really creepy and stuff, but, like, how could I not watch you? With your tattoos and your colorful hair and your piercings and your eyes, like, you’re so-”

“Conspicuous?” Louis supplied.

“Beautiful,” Harry sighed and Louis felt his heart somersault, a soft “oh” falling from his lips. “And so we got put together and you didn’t like me at first, don’t even try to tell me you did.”

“I was just having a bad day,” Louis said, fighting a smile, and Harry grinned.

“But then we kind of became friends and for a while I worried it was because you were like the people at the party and it was only because of my other clothes and my hair or whatever but it was really easy to see it wasn’t? Like, you were really genuine the whole time and that meant a lot to me. Because most of the time people aren’t.

“And we were hanging out more and I went to see your show and I’ve honestly never seen anyone in the world who deserves to be up on a stage more than you, Louis, you’re so gorgeous and vibrant and your voice is incredible-”

Harry’s little speech was cut short when Louis’s legs moved before he could tell them not to and he was throwing his arms around Harry, crashing his lips against the taller boy’s but only for a second, until he gained control of his own body again and pushed back.

 

“Wait, no, I’m sorry, you were, like, in the middle of… something, right?” Louis said, watching as the cogs in Harry’s head slowly clicked back into place.

“No, i-it’s okay, we can keep doing… that, if you,” his eyes were kind of unfocused and staring off into space and Louis giggled, taking the other’s jaw gently in his hand and turning it so their eyes were locked.

 

“I do. I really do,” he said. “But finish what you were saying first.”

“I, um. Don’t know if I remember,” Harry said, only half-kidding and Louis laughed, pulling him into a hug. “But seriously, Lou, just everyday I spent with you I found another reason to fall for you and become obsessed with you and I was really scared for a while because you’re such a free-spirit and you and I aren’t that alike, I thought maybe you’d want someone else but-”

“Never,” Louis said firmly.

“Oh. Okay,” Harry said. “Because I’m not saying I would do it to impress you, but if it got to that point, I was considering piercing my eyebrow or something.”

 

The image took all of the wind out of Louis in a rush, like he’d been punched in the gut and his knees buckled suddenly, so badly that Harry actually had to catch him and honestly, this boy would kill him.

“Please finish up your speech quick because I want to kiss you so bad,” Louis panted and Harry flinched.

“U-Uh, okay, basically, like-”

“I’m kidding, love, take your time.”

“Okay,” Harry said. “So, like, I never really cared what anyone else thought of me, but then there was you and I didn’t really care what you thought of me, per se- Well, I did, but it wasn’t so much that I wanted you to think highly of me so much that I wanted you to be thinking of me, you know?”

“There hasn’t been a single moment pretty much since we met when you weren’t on my mind,” Louis said honestly and Harry looked ready to burst.

“So don’t worry about other people and me thinking about other people because it was only ever really you for quite a while now and I can’t imagine that changing anytime soon,” Harry said, arms still wound around Louis’s waist and holding him close again him. “And you and I both have this habit of pissing the world off somewhat, so I was wondering if maybe you’d like to piss the world off together? For efficiency’s sake.”

“Oh, well, if it’s in the interest of efficiency,” Louis said, grinning stupidly and honestly, he felt like he might explode if he waited any longer, so he leaned forward, forehead pressing against Harry’s gently. “But yes, there’s no one else in the world I’d rather be a public menace with.”

“Good,” Harry said. “Okay, I’m done, we can do the, like, kissing now, you know.”

“Oh, can we? I was hoping to bask in the glow of your undying devotion to me a little longer,” Louis teased but he was already leaning in, as was Harry, who rolled his eyes at him.

“You definitely don’t need help being a public menace,” he said.

“Maybe not,” Louis mumbled against Harry’s pillow soft lips. “But I’d sure like the company.” He closed the distance between them without another word, arms tightening around Harry’s neck and pulling him closer, fingers sliding up into those curls that he’d wanted for so, so long and Harry’s lips were even softer than he’d hoped and sweeter, he could suckle on the lower lip for the rest of his life if he didn’t already feel a tongue poking at the seam of his own mouth and wow, Harry was a lot more adventurous than he seemed.

 

They stood there for a long time, wrapped up in each other, rocking back and forth a little, until Louis finally pulled back, only for Harry to lightly kiss down his jaw and towards his neck.

“We can’t stay out here all day, you know,” he panted, actually feeling a little dizzy and Harry shrugged.

“I don’t see why not,” he muttered into Louis’s skin, eliciting a shiver from the smaller boy.

“We have a- a presentation to give, Curly,” Louis said, trying to act like his breath hadn’t just hitched so audibly. Harry sighed against him, his body visibly deflating.

“Okay, fine,” he said. “But only because you need it to pass.”

“Thank you, love,” Louis said, turning his head to kiss Harry on the cheek.

“We’ll go to that class, we’re gonna knock the socks off of that presentation, then I’m taking you out for ice cream or coffee or something. Whatever you want,” Harry said, his turn to peck Louis on the cheek then taking his hand and squeezing it. Louis looked at the floor, trying to dumb down his thousand-watt smile, because literally, he was in love with a kid who still said “Knock the socks off.”

 

“How about cheeseburgers and chipshakes?” Louis suggested and Harry beamed down at him.

“That sounds heavenly,” he said, walking down the hall, swinging their hands in between them.

(Their presentation went beautifully and the teacher looked more than unhappy about passing Louis, Zayn and Niall had a ton of questions but most of them were just when they’d all go out together and happy exclamations at them, and sure, there were some people who were less than excited to see the two of them holding hands walking down the hall, but they didn’t mind. They hadn’t nobody to please but themselves. And they were positively over the moon.)


End file.
